Specter: Alito's personal views won't drive rulings...

[KansDem]

Judicial nominee sees distinct 'judicial role' on abortion

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, who expressed strong opposition to abortion rights two decades ago, pledged Friday that his personal views on the subject "would not be a factor" in his rulings, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said.

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In one, a sort of job application, Alito wrote in 1985 that he did not believe abortion rights were provided by the Constitution. In the other, a legal memo released on Wednesday, he counseled other lawyers in the Justice Department on a strategy for chipping away at abortion rights, with the eventual goal of overturning a landmark 1973 ruling on the subject.

Specter said that Alito had told him that in the legal memo, he had been acting as a lawyer for the Reagan administration, which had a policy of seeking the reversal of the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling that dated from 1973.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/02/specter.alito.ap/index.html

So, we've been seeing and hearing Alito The Lawyer, not Alito The Justice. That clears it up for me! Don't you feel a whole lot better? :eyes:

[Maat]

1. Yes, and I have a bridge here in Temecula to sell you ..

or, should I say, to the person that believes lower appellate court or Supreme Court opinions are apolitical.

Please ... when I was in law school ... I used to play a game. I used to have my friends give a U.S. Supreme Court opinion with the names taken off. I could guess who wrote it by that justice's unique language style, and his personal politics, which were reflective of his personal belief system.

And I don't work as a law clerk for law partners whose general views I disagree with.

While it is true that I would zealously advocate for any client, if I were a lawyer, I think that you would pretty much know which side of the fence I sat on - so-to-speak.

[Kagemusha]

2. I personally think Alito's version is plausible but...

I fail to see why his version should encourage all the rest of you people to take a chance on him as a possible Souter, even if, were I a conservative, I might be somewhat concerned that's what he'd turn into, because maybe he was just playing the Reaganites to get gainful employment all these years in the hopes of eventually becoming a Supreme Court justice. That said, this is the best paper trail on Roe bias for a long, long time, isn't it?