From: Citizen Link [mailto:citizenlink@family.org]
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 5:15 PM
To: LinkMembers@LISTSERV.FAMILY.ORG
Subject: SPECIAL REPORT - The Alito Hearings
*** CitizenLink Special Report ***
Jan. 10, 2005
Alito Remains Calm Under Onslaught
by Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst
Day 2 of the Alito hearings could be subtitled "Democrats in search of a substantive issue."
The questioning continues, but here's a quick look at how it has gone -- so far -- today:
As Senators Leahy and Kennedy huffed about strip searches, 20-year-old Alito memos and ethics issues previously
addressed and dismissed, the long-winded Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., complimented the judge on his responsiveness to
questioning -- while only managing to ask the nominee seven questions in 30 minutes.
In fact, through the first 11 questioners, Alito managed to answer every question put to him without invoking the
"Ginsburg rule" of refusing to give hints and forecasts of how he might rule as a justice. His command of the subject
matter and Supreme Court cases appeared every bit as thorough as Chief Justice Roberts' performance at his
September hearing, although the questioning has focused more on Alito's opinions from his 15 year career on the
federal appeals court than on Supreme Court cases.
The most significant responses came during committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter's inquiries on abortion and
honoring precedent, themes which also dominated the Roberts hearings.
Alito told the Pennsylvania Republican that although he respects precedent, it is not an "inexorable command" that
it must be followed in all instances. He respects privacy rights of people against unreasonable searches in their
homes, in their papers and in their persons, but he did not go beyond that and adopt the "general" notion of
privacy which led to Roe v. Wade.
He criticized the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision by testifying that the Supreme Court should not
hang on to prior precedent (i.e., Roe v. Wade) so that the "legitimacy" of the Court could be maintained. Alito
stated that the Court should do what the law requires in all instances, and "not sway in the wind of public opinion
at any time."
In a further blow to Roe, he refused to support Specter's notions of "super-precedent" -- observing that it sounded
more like a large box of detergent than a legal principle.
Alito also didn't bite on the notion of a "living Constitution" which has been the basis for activist judges
re-writing constitutional rights in order to do social engineering on topics like same-sex marriage and
homosexual rights.
"The principles don't change - the Constitution itself doesn't change," he said, explaining that new situations
arise every day, and the unchanging principles must be applied to those facts rather than re-writing the
principles themselves.
-- A full report on the hearing will lead off our daily update later this afternoon.
===================
Gary Schneeberger
Editor
Stuart Shepard
Managing Editor
Pete Winn
Associate Editor
Wendy Cloyd
Assistant Editor
Peter Brandt
Senior Director, Government & Public Policy
Tom Minnery
Senior Vice President, Government & Public Policy
Jim Daly
President and CEO, Focus on the Family
Dr. James C. Dobson
Founder and Chairman, Focus on the Family
---------------------------------
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