On Monday, President Bush announced his new nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Surprise! It’s another white male.
Samuel Alito, who has served 15 years on a New Jersey Circuit Court, is a staunchly conservative judge. Although this fact is sure to please Bush’s constituents, the rest of the nation ought to be less than thrilled with the Alito nomination.
Said to have a philosophy similar to that of Scalia, Alito is not in favor of a strict line between church and state. He once upheld the right of a fundamentalist Christian group to display propaganda in a public school.
Regarding abortion, it is thus far known that Alito voted in favor of a spousal notification provision, which would have required women to inform their husband before receiving an abortion. In 2000, Alito wrote a judicial opinion criticizing fellow judges for overreacting to a New Jersey law prohibiting late-term abortions because it lacked a mother’s health exception.
As if Alito didn’t seem conservative enough, it has also been reported that Alito once asserted that the federal government has no right to curb the sale of automatic machine guns.
In a previous editorial we criticized President Bush for providing a nominee (Harriet Miers) with no history of voting records to evaluate. Alito, on the other hand, certainly has a paper trail. It is apparent from Alito’s past that this judge has a right-wing stance on many issues. Can he write balanced and objective decisions? We hope the Senate won’t confirm him so we don’t have to find out.