Shot across the bow

Bow shot

Pro-Choice Senators and Judge Alito

Published: January 13, 2006

There are many reasons to be concerned about the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito Jr. for the Supreme Court, but for a small group of moderate Republicans who strongly identify themselves as supporters of abortion rights, there is a special problem: if Judge Alito gets to the court, there is every reason to believe that he will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade when the opportunity comes.

In 1985, when he was a 35-year-old government lawyer, Judge Alito stated that the Constitution did not protect abortion rights, and that he was "particularly proud" of his legal work arguing that the Constitution did not confer the right to an abortion. There is now ample evidence that he continues to hold that view.

He refused time and again in this week's hearings to call Roe "settled law." That's a giant red flag because he did say that the one-person-one-vote cases, which he denounced in the same 1985 memo - and many other decisions - are now settled law. In sharp contrast, as Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, underscored, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. said at his Supreme Court confirmation hearing last year that Roe was settled law.

There was a telling moment at the start of the Alito hearings when Senator Arlen Specter, the committee chairman, offered Judge Alito a way out. He asked whether Judge Alito believed, as some commentators do, that the Supreme Court's 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, strongly reaffirming Roe, made Roe a "super-precedent" - and therefore rendered the judge's 1985 views obsolete.

But Judge Alito would not give Senator Specter, who supports abortion rights, even that small bit of comfort, saying he did not believe in super-precedents. All of that should make things hard for Senator Specter and for three moderate Republicans - Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine - who have said they will oppose any nominee committed to overturning Roe.
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Gail Collins is serious here. The Times is setting up a challenge to all the so-called pro-choice Republicans, either you vote against him or we use it against you.

The White House cannot be happy about this, because the next week is going to be filled with charges that Alito would overturn Roe, which is poison to his chances. Which is why his upset wife fled the room.

While the right may deride the Times, a LOT of people just got a wake up call about this. If the impression holds that Alito is pro-life, even a vote on the nuclear option could doom the GOP. Why? Because if they overturned the rules of the Senate to vote in a pro-life justice, there would be no cover. That's not a vote you explain away.

They thought the Dems needed a broadside hit, some evidence of wrongdoing. They don't. They just need one or two Senators to say that he will overturn Roe and it's a whole different game. Imagine the impact of Hillary Clinton saying "I cannot vote for Samuel Alito because he will end a woman's right to choose."

Once that's the issue, the WH is in trouble and they know it. Once it's about abortion, the GOP has a self-inflicted crisis on their hands.

posted by Steve @ 12:15:00 AM