Alito Leans Right Where O'Connor Swung Left

This is from the Washington Post:

In 1991, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. voted to uphold a Pennsylvania statute that would have required at least some married women to notify their husbands before getting an abortion; a year later, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor cast a decisive fifth vote at the Supreme Court to strike it down.

In 2000, Alito ruled that a federal law requiring time off for family and medical emergencies could not be used to sue state employers for damages; three years later, O'Connor was part of a Supreme Court majority that said it could.

And last year, Alito upheld the death sentence of a convicted Pennsylvania murderer, ruling that his defense lawyers had performed up to the constitutionally required minimum standard. When the case reached the Supreme Court, O'Connor cast a fifth vote to reverse Alito.

The record is clear: On some of the most contentious issues that came before the high court, Alito has been to the right of the centrist swing voter he would replace. As a result, legal analysts across the spectrum saw the Alito appointment yesterday as a bid by President Bush to tilt the court, currently evenly divided between left and right, in a conservative direction.

O'Connor "has been a moderating voice on critical civil liberties issues ranging from race to religion to reproductive freedom," said Steven R. Shapiro, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Judge Alito's nomination . . . therefore calls into question the court's delicate balance that Justice O'Connor has helped to shape and preserve."

"With this nomination, Bush is saying 'Bring it on!' " said John C. Yoo, a former Bush administration Justice Department official. "There is no effort to evade a clash with Senate Democrats. That's why conservatives are so happy."

The conservatives and religious right-wingnuts are now happy with Bush. He has chosen a wing-nut who tip the court away from the center and move it towards the right. With Alito on the bench, the conservatives are hoping for the court will strike down civil liberties laws, free speech, evolution, and abortion. Since 1973, it has been the conservative mantra--and the Republican Party's platform--to overturn Roe and thus, outlaw abortion. And now with the court so evenly divided, they are about to achieve their goal.

What I find amazing is how the American public has been so blind regarding the contentious issue of the Supreme Court in the 2000 elections. The public had no idea that by choosing Bush for re-election, they would also be choosing how the Supreme Court would be made up. Of course, the public was somewhat misled by a Republican dis-information scheme which focused on the issue of terrorism rather than the court. And the Democrats never did properly raise the issue of the court in the elections. The Supreme Court became a non-issue in politics during 2000. The American public is going to get what they paid for, where women would have to go to the back-ally abortion clinics, where civil and constitutional rights would be shredded, where the government would intrude into their own private lives--what to wear, what to say, who to sleep with, and how to behave as defined by religious right-wingnut extremists.