Monday, President George W. Bush did more than miss an opportunity to unite the country behind a moderate nominee to the Supreme Court -- he spit in the face of both women's rights and minority rights. He made it very clear that he simply does not care about women and minorities.
Judge Samuel Alito is more right wing than Antonin Scalia., which I didn't even know was possible. Here are some of his rulings:
In his solo dissenting opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, he wrote, "[t]he Pennsylvania legislature could have rationally believed that some married women are initially inclined to obtain an abortion without their husbands' knowledge because of perceived problems -- such as economic constraints, future plans, or the husbands' previously expressed opposition -- that may be obviated by discussion prior to the abortion." This means that, under Judge Alito, women abused by their husbands would have to get permission from their abusers to have an abortion. "Perceived problems?" This kind of opinion is a death sentence! Alito does not recognize that domestic abuse occurs.
In addition, Alito would require a so-called "smoking gun" in sex discrimination cases. In other words, the bosses of women filing for sex discrimination would have to say, "I'm firing you because you're a woman," for it to be a legitimate case -- otherwise, it should be dismissed before reaching trial.
Alito also opined that a school policy prohibiting discrimination against students based on sexual orientation was unconstitutional because it could cover "simple acts of teasing and name-calling." He even went so far as to say that harassment is guaranteed under free speech laws.
Alito also thinks that Congress has no right to regulate a citizen's right to own a machine gun.
He once reversed a court ruling that a polluter should pay more than $2 million in fines for violating the Clean Water Act, saying that environmental plaintiffs had to prove as many as 150 violations of the Act. According to the Community Rights Counsel, this "contravenes the intent of Congress which in the Clean Water Act had explicitly substituted this difficult, expensive process of tracing pollution impacts to specific sources with an easy-to-monitor system of pollution limits. But Judge Alito deemed Congress' intent to give groups like PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) standing irrelevant."
Alito tore down parts of the Family Medical Leave Act that would have allowed state employees to sue the state for failure to provide leave. He wrote that a "state's refusal to provide family leave has no greater impact on women than on men."
Women of Dartmouth: the time has come to speak out. Do anything: go and visit N.H. senators, legislators, come down to DC to talk to your congresspeople, keep checking progressive websites for what you can do: we cannot wait any longer. It is our lives that are on the line.
