Alito's Remarks on Roe May Not Be Fighting Words (Dems won't filibuster?) [View All]

[papau]

Ron Brownstein dares (?) Democrats NOT to filibuster Alito over abortion http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-outlook12dec12,1,7192065.column?coll=la-news-a_section

Alito's Remarks on Roe May Not Be Fighting Words

Ronald Brownstein
Washington Outlook

December 12, 2005

With the recent release of two memos that Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote during the Reagan administration, many Democrats believe they have found a smoking gun demonstrating his hostility to Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision guaranteeing the right to abortion.

In the two documents — one an administration job application, the other a Justice Department legal memo — Alito expressed a skepticism about Roe that liberal critics suspected, but could not prove, was also held by GOP court nominees Clarence Thomas and John G. Roberts Jr.

"It is difficult to imagine stronger evidence of a nominee's legal views on Roe v. Wade" than these memos, said Dawn Johnsen, a professor of constitutional law at Indiana University and former legal director at NARAL Pro-Choice America.

But it's still not clear these disclosures will seriously threaten Alito's confirmation. And if they do not, both sides might need to rethink basic assumptions about the politics of the Supreme Court.<snip>

If that's still insufficient to generate substantial opposition from senators who support Roe, Bush and his GOP successors might understandably conclude that overt opposition to legalized abortion isn't as dangerous for court nominees as they feared. In that way, the Alito memos may raise the stakes in this struggle more for the judge's opponents than for Bush. If the left can't win this fight, they can probably expect another one like it the next time a Republican president fills a vacancy on the high court