Going Against His Word

Going Against His Word

November 1, 2005

In choosing Judge Alito to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the President has gone against his word and chosen a judicial activist. If the President wanted to choose a judge who interprets the law rather than imposing his or her will on the Court, he chose the wrong nominee. Alito has been described as an activist conservative judge and he has a record to prove it. Some have even gone so far as saying that Alito’s lack of deference to Congress is unsettling.

• Judge Alito questioned Congress’s authority to regulate interstate commerce. In 1996, Judge Alito was the sole dissenter on the Third Court of Appeals in U.S. v. Rybar, in which his colleagues upheld Congress's right to ban fully automatic machine guns. Alito argued that Congress had no power under the commerce clause to enact such a law. But he did not stop there. He further demanded that "Congress be required to make findings showing a link between the regulation and its effect on interstate commerce, or that Congress or the president document such a link with empirical evidence."
  
  
• Judge Alito struck down the Family Medical Leave Act. The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) "guarantees most workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a loved one." In a 2000 case, Alito used his judicial position to "prevent the federal government from enforcing civil rights protections." Alito held that Congress overstepped its authority under the Fourteenth Amendment and therefore had no power to require employers to comply with the FMLA. In 2003, the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist led the majority that overturned Alito's decision.
  
  
• Judge Alito weakened existing antitrust and discrimination laws. Throughout his career, Alito has been willing to push the boundaries of the law for big business. In Bray v. Marriott Hotels (1996), Marriott sought to deny the plaintiff, an African-American woman, the right to present her case of racial discrimination. Alito sided with Marriott, while the majority siding with Bray criticized Alito for overstepping his judicial role and "acting as a factfinder [and] taking it upon himself to interpret the meaning of the deposition testimony of one of the defendants."