Senate Judiciary Dems Take Aim at Alito

[deadparrot]

WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats issued their first coordinated challenge to Judge Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, seeking extensive records about his participation in a 2002 appeals case despite a six-figure investment with one of the defendants.

In a letter to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the eight Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Alito had promised the panel in 1990 he would "disqualify myself from any cases involving the Vanguard companies."

The letter requests the original opinion in the 2002 case, which was unpublished. It also seeks any communication "from or to the White House, the Justice Department ... or anyone else on their behalf" concerning Alito's decision to participate in the case, in which a three-judge panel ruled on behalf of Vanguard and other investment firms. The companies had been sued by a widow who claimed she was denied funds originally belonging to her deceased husband.

The White House, saying Alito has acted ethically throughout his career, dismissed the suggestion that there was something wrong in this case. "Judge Alito looks forward to answering any questions that committee members may ask him at the hearing about this issue," said Steven Schmidt, an administration spokesman.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051110/ap_on_go_su_co/alito

[damntexdem]

1. About time the Vanguard case was brought out.

This is Alito's Achilles heel. He REFUSED to recuse himself in a case involving a company in which he owned stock, which is bad enough in itself. But he had previously, at confirmation for the court of appeals, promised to recuse himself in such cases. This is enough of a breach to knock him out of confirmation for the SCOTUS.

[Ian David]

2. He specifically promised to recuse himself in cases involving VANGUARD

and then when a case involving Vanguard came-up, he refused to keep his promise.

And then he had the nerve to cite a "computer error" for the "mistake."

He says the computer didn't flag the case, so he didn't recuse himself.

That's like saying, "The cash register was open, which is why it was okay for me to take the money."

[JackORoses]

3. Alito is Toast

Plaintiff alleges Alito conflict
Says judge should have recused self

By Sarah Schweitzer and Michael Kranish, Globe Staff
November 3, 2005

Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. ruled in a 2002 case in favor of the Vanguard mutual fund company at a time when he owned more than $390,000 in Vanguard funds and later complained about an effort to remove him from the case, court records show -- despite an earlier promise to recuse himself from cases involving the company.

The case involved a Massachusetts woman, Shantee Maharaj, who has spent nearly a decade fighting to win back the assets of her late husband's individual retirement accounts, which had been frozen by Vanguard after a court judgment in favor of a former business partner of her husband.

...

Maharaj, 50, discovered Alito's ownership of Vanguard shares in 2002 when she requested his financial disclosure forms after he ruled against her appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

''I just started seeing Vanguard after Vanguard, and I almost fell to the floor," she said in an interview at the Jamaica Plain home she shares with a friend after losing her own home in the course of the prolonged litigation. ''I just couldn't believe that it could be so blatant."

In 1990, when Alito was seeking US Senate approval for his nomination to be a circuit judge, he said in written answers to a questionnaire that he would disqualify himself from ''any cases involving the Vanguard companies."

After Alito ruled in Vanguard's favor in the Maharaj case, he complained about her efforts to vacate his decision and remove him from the case, writing to the chief administrative judge of the federal appeals court on which he sat in 2003: ''I do not believe that I am required to disqualify myself based on my ownership of the mutual fund shares."

The White House, asked about the seeming contradiction between Alito's two statements, said that Alito was put on the case due to an error by a computer system that should have warned that he was taking a Vanguard-related case, because the investments were listed in the database.

Asked why Alito did not recuse himself after learning that it involved Vanguard, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino criticized those who are raising questions about Alito's actions.

...

According to a 2002 court filing submitted by Flym alleging the conflict of interest, ''Alito owned shares worth $390,000 to $975,000 in seventeen Vanguard funds."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/03/plaintiff_alleges_alito_conflict/