The Alito Myths

Progress Report analyzes the first day of Republican Senatorial spin in the Alito hearings:

CLAIM -- ALITO HAS SHOWN JUDICIAL RESTRAINT
FACT -- ALITO HAS A HISTORY OF LEGISLATING FROM THE BENCH

While on the federal bench, Alito has been more than willing to actively overstep judicial boundaries and overturn existing laws. Lawrence Lustberg, a criminal defense lawyer who has known Alito since 1981, described him as "an activist conservatist judge." In 1996, Alito was the sole dissenter in U.S. v. Rybar, arguing that Congress had no power under the Commerce Clause to ban fully automatic machine guns and demanding that "Congress be required to make findings showing a link between the regulation and its effect on interstate commerce, or that Congress or the president document such a link with empirical evidence."
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CLAIM -- ALITO HAS PUT HIS PERSONAL VIEWS ASIDE
FACT -- ALITO HAS PUSHED A CONSERVATIVE AGENDA

Alito's conservative politics -- going back to his days in the right-wing Concerned Alumni of Princeton group -- have appeared throughout his career. While applying for a job in the Reagan administration in 1985, Alito wrote that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion" and while in the Solicitor General's office, he was able to "help advance legal positions in which [he] personally believe[s] very strongly." These assertions were Alito's personal views, not the views of his employer.
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CLAIM -- ALITO HAS DECIDED EACH CASE ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS
FACT -- ALITO'S DECISIONS HAVE BEEN 'ALMOST UNIFORMLY CONSERVATIVE'

Legal scholar Cass Sunstein noted that Alito's 41 dissents as an appeals court judge "are almost uniformly conservative. In the overwhelming majority of cases, he has urged a more conservative position than that of his colleagues." Knight Ridder also found a clear pattern in a review of Alito’s 311 published opinions on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals: He has "seldom sided with a criminal defendant, a foreign national facing deportation, an employee alleging discrimination or consumers suing big businesses."
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Complete analysis and links at today's Progress Report....

Check Carol's previous post for links on what you can do.