Senator Dianne Feinstein's Response re the Alito Nomination and Confirmation Vote

[Thanks to Dominick Di Noto for forwarding the following response,
including her address to the U.S. Senate, regarding the nomination of
Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. It provides a most interesting and
informative review of past court nominations -- starting with one
(that was rejected by the Senate) by President George Washington and
continuing on down to the present. -- RickM]

Thank you for contacting me regarding the nomination of
Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to be an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of
the United States. I appreciate hearing from you.

I voted against Judge Alito's nomination in the Judiciary
Committee, against it on the Senate floor, and I also voted against a
cloture motion to cut off debate on the nomination. I have enclosed the
full statement I made on the Senate floor explaining my opposition to
Judge Alito's confirmation to such a pivotal seat on the Supreme Court.
Please know that I appreciate your views and I hope that you will
continue to keep me informed of your thoughts.

Again, thank you for writing. If you should have any
other comments, or if you have a question I can answer, please feel free
to contact my Washington, D.C. staff at (202) 224-3841.


Statement of Senator Dianne Feinstein
"Nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to be an Associate
Justice
of the Supreme Court of the United States"

Mrs. FEINSTEIN: I thank the ranking member of the Judiciary
Committee and I thank the Chair.

I come to the floor to offer my reasons for opposing Judge Alito. Let
me begin with this: If the Supreme Court's decisions were simply
mathematical computations of legal points, our job would be easy and all
of the Court's decisions would be 9 to 0. But the legal philosophy and
views of each individual Justice do play a role in decisionmaking on the
Court. Perhaps not the majority of the time, when the question before
the Court is not controversial; but certainly when the question is
controversial and divisive, legal views and philosophies do play a role.

We just had a recent example. Last week the Supreme Court upheld
Oregon's Death with Dignity Act by a 6-to-3 decision in a case called
Gonzales v. Oregon. When then-Judge Roberts came before the Senate,
I and others questioned him on his end-of-life views. He then replied
that the Government should not enter the arena. When discussing my
point that he would not want the Government telling him what to do, he said:

"The basic understanding that it's a free country and the right to be left
alone is one of our basic rights."

He gave us the impression that he believed there was, in fact, a right to
die. However, just last week, Chief Justice Roberts joined the two most
conservative members of the Court, Justices Scalia and Thomas, in an opinion
that, if it had carried the day, would have allowed the administration to
invalidate the end-of-life initiative twice supported by Oregon voters in
State elections, once when it was enacted and once when it was reaffirmed.

Secondly, history reveals that legal views and philosophies have
been the rationale for the rejection of at least 12 Presidential nominees
for the Supreme Court. Members on the other side of the aisle often say
these legal views and philosophies are not a bona fide consideration. But
what I say is these have been used as the rationale for the rejection of at
least a dozen Presidential nominees in history.

Let me mention a few of them. It began with President George
Washington when he nominated John Rutledge in 1795. Rutledge was
rejected by a vote of 10 to 14 because he made a speech denouncing the
Jay Treaty between the United States and Great Britain.

Fifteen years later, President James Madison's nomination of
Alexander Wolcott was rejected by the Senate by a vote of 9 to 24, in
part, based of his policies while a U.S. collector of customs and his
actions strongly enforcing controversial embargoes.

President Andrew Jackson, in 1835, nominated Roger Taney to the Supreme
Court. He had served as the Secretary of Treasury, and he
removed the Government's deposits from the Bank of the United States.
Senators who were opposed to that move offered a motion postponing
his nomination indefinitely, which passed 24 to 21.

President James Polk, nominated George Woodward in 1845, and
allegations arose that as a delegate to the 1837 Constitutional
Convention, he introduced an amendment that would have prohibited any
foreigners who came to Pennsylvania after 1841 from voting or holding
office.

President Ulysses S. Grant nominated Ebenezer Hoar in 1869, who had
served as Attorney General. Senators were upset by the fact that he
recommended nominees to the circuit courts without taking into
consideration Senators' preferences. His nomination was defeated 24 to 33.

The same thing happened in 1881, when President Rutherford Hayes
nominated Stanley Mathews. He was defeated because of
his close ties to railroad and financial interests.

President Warren Harding, in 1922, nominated Pierce Butler. His
nomination was blocked from consideration on the Senate floor because
of an alleged procorporation bias and his previous advocacy for railroad
issues that were coming before the Court.

In 1930, President Herbert Hoover's choice of John Parker was
rejected because he made statements opposing the participation of
African Americans in politics and because of his labor record while chief
judge of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

John Marshall Harlan II was nominated by Dwight Eisenhower in
1954. The nomination was never reported out of committee because
some members felt he was "ultraliberal" and hostile to the South and
dedicated to reforming the Constitution by "judicial fiat."

In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson nominated Abe Fortas to be
elevated to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. His nomination was
defeated after the Senate failed to invoke cloture 45 to 43. One Senator
is reported as saying that Fortas' "judicial philosophy disqualifies him for
this high office."

It went on for two of President Nixon's nominees. Clement F.
Haynsworth, Jr. Was rejected in 1969 by a vote of 45-55. At that time,
five senators issued a joint statement that expressed "doubts about his
record on the appellate bench," and one senator opposed the nomination
on the basis pf his record on civil rights issues.

The other, G. Harrold Carswell, was rejected by a vote of 45-51, in
part based on his judicial philosophy. A statement issued by four
senators at the time stated they opposed his nomination because his
"decisions and his courtroom demeanor had been openly hostile to the
black, the poor and the unpopular."

And, of course, one of President Ronald Reagan's nominees, Judge
Robert Bork, whose views and legal philosophy were of great concern.
Judge Bork believed Americans had no constitutional right to use
contraception. He argued that in guaranteeing one man, one vote, the
Court "stepped beyond its boundaries as an original matter." And he had
a broad view of Executive power. He once asserted that a law requiring
the President to obtain a court order before conducting surveillance in the
United States, and against U.S. citizens was "a thoroughly bad idea and
almost certainly unconstitutional."

Most recently, White House Counsel Harriet Miers was withdrawn
even before consideration by the Judiciary Committee due to the
rightwing's objections.

So it is abundantly clear that judicial philosophy and legal views
have been evaluated by senators from both sides of the aisle throughout
history, and they are valid reasons to reject a nominee for the U.S.
Supreme Court.

To now argue that evaluating one's judicial philosophy is setting a
new precedent is simply turning a blind eye to history. So while none of
us can predict how any person will act in the future, we do have to
thoroughly consider information available that provides insights into a
nominee's judicial philosophy and legal reasoning. I want to make clear.

Secondly, many of my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee have
argued that the nomination of Justices Ginsburg and Breyer have set a
precedent for how Supreme Court nominations should be handled, that
no one questioned their judicial philosophy, and that they swept through
by large votes. I want to take a moment to answer that.

The fact of the matter is that there was real advice and consent in the
nominations of Justices Ginsburg and Breyer. Senator Hatch, in his book
"Square Peg: Confessions of a Citizen Senator," who was then the
ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, gave the following account
of the Ginsburg nomination:

It was not a surprise when the President called to talk about the
appointment and what he was thinking of doing.

So President Clinton told Senator Hatch what he was thinking of
doing. Senator Hatch goes on:

President Clinton indicated he was leaning toward Bruce
Babbitt...Clinton asked for my reaction.

I told him the confirmation would not be easy. I explained to the
President that although he might prevail in the end, he should
consider whether he wanted a tough, political battle over his first
appointment to the Court. I asked whether he had considered Judge
Stephen Breyer of the First Circuit Court of Appeals or Judge Ruth
Bader Ginsburg of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Both were confirmed with relative ease. So since the ranking
member of the Judiciary Committee -- the minority ranking member --
had recommended these nominees, it is not surprising that they moved
through the confirmation process relatively easy. I am confident that if
President Bush had decided to nominate any of the candidates suggested
by the current ranking member of the committee, Senator Leahy, the
process could have been smooth this time as well. But he didn't.

With that said, I also believe that today is a very different day than
the time when Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer were before the
Senate. Let me point out some of the differences. There was not the
polarization that there is within America today. There was not the clear
effort to upset the current balance of the Court and move it far to the
right.

When Justices Ginsburg and Breyer were before the Senate, it had
been more than 50 years since any statute had been struck down by the
Supreme Court on commerce clause grounds.

It wasn't actually until April 26, 1995, after both Justices had been
confirmed, that the Supreme Court began to revisit an area that had been
well settled since the New Deal in the mid-1930s in its decision on a case
known as Lopez. In U.S. v. Lopez, the Court struck down the Gun-Free
School Zones Act that had been passed by the Congress, which
essentially prohibited the possession of a firearm within a thousand feet
of a school.

It was this decision that signaled the beginning of the Rehnquist
Court's federalism "revolution." In the next decade, from 1995 to 2005,
the Rehnquist Court struck down all or portions of 30 congressionally
enacted laws, 10 of them on federalism grounds. Here they are on this
chart. I will point out some of them to you: The Indian Gaming
Regulatory Act, the Federal Election Campaign Act, the Cable
Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act, the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act, the Communications Decency Act, the Brady
Handgun Violence Prevention Act, the Water Resources Development
Act, the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act, section 316 of the
Communications Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act, the Violence Against Women Act,
the Telecommunications Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act,
section 2511 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, the
FDA Modernization Act, the Child Pornography Act, the Bipartisan
Campaign Reform Act, the Child Online Protection Act and on and on
and on, using various sections of the Constitution to hold impermissible
congressional actions in these areas.

Now, this is a major thrust of the Court, and it is a serious thrust. It
is one that this body and the other body ought to understand because,
with these actions, the Court was essentially declaring that the Congress
cannot legislate in many important areas, areas that are very important to
me and to my constituents.

When Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer were before the Senate,
we were not in the midst of a war with Iraq, nor was our country faced
with a war on terror that could last for our lifetime and, for all we know,
for our children's lifetime. Few would have predicted that the President
would authorize the use of torture in defiance of the Geneva Convention
and the Convention Against Torture and Military Law; that the President
would argue that he had inherent plenary authority to detain Americans
without due process; and that the President would authorize the
electronic surveillance of Americans in direct violation of the law, a law
passed by this body, the other body, and signed by President Carter in
1978.

In addition, when Justices Ginsburg and Breyer were before the
Senate, Planned Parenthood v. Casey had just recently been decided.
Casey made it clear that Roe v. Wade remained controlling precedent; it
affirmed a woman's constitutional right to privacy; it clarified that States
have an interest to protect viable unborn life; and it held that many State
laws relating to abortion were valid.

With the Casey decision, there was a general acceptance that a
woman's right to choose was secure. There had been a clear and direct
challenge to Roe -- as a matter of fact, it has been challenged at least
three dozen times -- and the Court had affirmed in Casey Roe's central
holding.

Finally, as I noted when discussing Senator Hatch's book "Square
Peg," at the time Justices Ginsburg and Breyer were before the Senate,
we didn't have an administration that was bent on moving the Court
dramatically in one direction. Yet today, when we are evaluating a
nominee to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor -- a pivotal Justice, a
Justice who was the fifth vote in 148 out of 193 5-4 decisions -- the
President continues to assert that he will only nominate those who view
the Constitution through a lens of strict constructionism and originalism.

I think we must remember what these terms mean. I want to take a
moment to do so. It is widely accepted among legal scholars that strict
constructionists and originalists look to evaluate the Constitution based
on what the words say as written and what the Framers intended those
words to mean at the time they were written.

If we examine what these terms could mean when applied to actual
constitutional questions today, it becomes clear why most legal scholars
view the Constitution as a living document, able to adjust to the
differences of the country today. Remember, in colonial times, there
were 13 colonies and and around 4 million people. Today we are close
to 300 million people and we are 50 States.

Justice Brennan wrote in 1986 about this, and I quote him:

During colonial times, pillorying, [flogging], branding, and cropping
and nailing of the ears were practiced in this country. Thus, if we
were to turn blindly to history for answers to troubling constitutional
questions, we would have to conclude that these practices would
withstand challenge under the cruel and unusual clause of the eighth
amendment.

He wrote that in the Harvard Law Review in December of 1986.

If an originalist analysis were applied to the 14th amendment,
women would not be provided equal protection under the Constitution,
interracial marriages could be outlawed, schools could still be
segregated, and the principle of one man, one vote would not govern the
way we elect our representatives.

My concerns about confirming a strict constructionist or originalist
to the Court are best demonstrated by what this legal reasoning could
mean in three important areas: congressional authority to enact
legislation, checks on Presidential powers, and individual liberty and
privacy interests. I want to talk about these for a minute in the context
of
Judge Alito.

It is my conclusion that Judge Alito would most likely join Justices
Thomas and Scalia in the originalist and strict constructionist
interpretations of the Constitution. And those are the interpretations that
have been used by the Rehnquist Court in the past decade to overthrow
all or portions of the 30 laws to which I just referred. I have come to
this
conclusion based on Judge Alito's record in the Reagan administration
and on the bench.

In 1986, Congress passed what seemed to me a pretty simple law. It
was called the Truth in Mileage Act. It basically forbid anyone from
tampering with odometers in automobiles. As a deputy at the Office of
Legal Counsel, Judge Alito recommended that President Reagan veto
this bill because it violated principles of federalism.

Judge Alito also drafted a statement for President Reagan to make
when he vetoed the bill, asserting "it is the States and not the Federal
Government that are charged with protecting the health, safety, and
welfare of their citizens."

It is the States, not the Federal Government. The implication is the
Federal Government does not have a role in protecting the health, safety,
and welfare of our citizens.

Judge Alito's restricted views of congressional authority later
surfaced in his decisions while on the Third Circuit. For me, a prime
example is the case of U.S. v. Rybar. This case is significant because it
was a case where Congress clearly had the authority to enact legislation,
and yet Judge Alito wrote a separate opinion, a dissent, to argue against
the law. He was the sole dissenter, and he was outvoted.

In his opinion, he used a legal technicality that would have thrown
out the conviction of a man who had illegally possessed and sold fully
automatic machine guns in the State of Pennsylvania.

In reaching his conclusion, he seemed to ignore past precedents,
clearly establishing congressional authority to regulate firearms, such as
the Miller case of 1939.

He also dismissed previous statutes that had already outlined the
obvious impact guns have on interstate commerce, even when sold
within a State. To me, that was a major indication of his thinking.

The facts in this case make this point even more obvious: one gun
was from China, the other was a military M3 submachine gun made
during World War II by General Motors. Clearly, both guns had traveled
through interstate commerce before reaching Pennsylvania where the
arrest took place.

Judge Alito's views on congressional power could also limit
Congress's ability to protect the environment. In the next few years, the
Supreme Court is likely to hear a number of cases challenging Congress's
authority to pass laws protecting the environment, such as the Clean
Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. In fact, later this term, the
Supreme Court will hear two cases. One is Carabell v. Army Corps of
Engineers, and the other Rapanos v. U.S.

The issue in both is whether the Congress has the authority to
regulate nonnavigable waterways under the Clean Water Act. Both are
brought to the Court on the basis that Congress could not regulate
environmental control in nonnavigable waterways. If the Supreme Court
were to strike down this provision, the Federal Government would lose
its primary tool to protect wetlands.

If confirmed, Judge Alito could be the decisive vote in these
environmental cases, and his record on the environment, in this regard, is
not reassuring. Let me give an example.

In the case Public Interest Research Group v. Magnesium Elektron, it
was undisputed that a chemical company had committed 150 different
violations of the Clean Water Act by illegally dumping chemicals into a
river. The plaintiffs in the case were members of an environmental
group and had stopped using the river because of the pollution.

Judge Alito voted in a 2-to-1 decision to throw the case out. He
adopted a narrow reading of both the Clean Water Act and the legal
concept of standing. In doing so, his conclusion would have gutted the
provision that allows individual citizens to enforce the law.

Three years later, the Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision in Friends of
the Earth v. Laidlaw rejected Judge Alito's expansive view of the
standing requirement, making it easier for individuals to sue to stop
violations of the Clean Water Act.

So this is a serious concern -- Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act,
Endangered Species Act. Our ability to legislate in these areas is very
much at stake with this judge.

Judge Alito's views on the scope of Presidential powers are deeply
concerning to me at this point in American history. The Constitution
gives both the President and the Congress critical roles in the defense of
our Nation. The Constitution specifically provides in article I, section 8:

The Congress shall have Power To...provide for the common
Defense and general Welfare of the United States...
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make
Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies...
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and
naval Forces...
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the
Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and
for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Services
of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the
Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia
according to the discipline prescribed by Congress...and
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying
into Execution the foregoing Powers....

In other words, we are responsible to give the powers to the
President for him to execute in these areas. That is a very important
article, and it is the heart of congressional authority and the balance of
power at a time of crisis.

Our national security and constitutional liberties suffer when either
branch oversteps its bounds. Today our Nation is in a very different
place than it was 10 years ago. We face new challenges to our
constitutional framework of checks and balances.

This President has asserted unprecedented authority in many areas
which has raised profound constitutional questions. They include: may
the President authorize torture; does the Constitution permit the President
to order the arrest and detention of individuals inside the United States
without due process or access to counsel; does the Constitution allow the
President to violate laws based on inherent plenary power; and is it
constitutionally permissible for the President to authorize electronic
surveillance of Americans without a warrant in violation of Federal law?

Given the critical importance of these questions to both our national
security and our constitutional democracy, I asked Judge Alito a variety
of questions to get a sense of his vision of the balance of power between
the President, the Congress, and the courts.

Rather than engage in a productive discussion about the issues, he
simply repeated obvious truisms, such as "nobody is above or below the
law," or agreed to the unsurprising proposition that the Constitution and
the laws of the Nation are supreme. He did not answer whether the
President had to follow these laws.

His answers were inadequate, so I was left to evaluate his views
based on his prior record.

At the Department of Justice, Judge Alito was part of the effort to
press for expanded Presidential power, and there is no doubt about that.

While serving in the Department of Justice, he wrote a memo on
Presidential signing statements, and here is what he argued:

From the perspective of the executive branch, the issuance of
interpretive signing statements would...increase the power of the
Executive to shape the law.

"The power of the Executive to shape the law." Do we believe this is
correct, or do we believe that the ability to make and shape the law rests
with the Congress, and the President can sign it or veto and indicate his
reasons for so doing, but not shape the law to his specific demand?

Then when speaking before the Federalist Society in November of
2000, Judge Alito expressed his support for the unitary executive theory.
In 1988, this unitary executive theory was rejected by the Supreme Court
in a decision called Morrison v. Olson. It was rejected overwhelmingly.
The majority was 7 to 1. The opinion was offered by Justice Rehnquist.
The Court rejected Justice Scalia's argument that the independent counsel
must be under the executive branch and report to the President. That
took care of what is called the theory of the unitary executive.

Yet more than a decade later, Judge Alito declared:

I still think that this theory best captures the meaning of the
Constitution's text and structure.

Clearly, this is a statement for expanded Presidential authority and
for the unitary executive.

Judge Alito's vague answers at the hearing, coupled with the specific
statements made a few years ago, lead me to conclude that he is a strong
proponent of expanded Presidential authority and that he is not
committed to a proper system of checks and balances, which brings me
to my third point.

If one is pro-choice in this day and age, with the balance of the Court
at stake, one cannot vote to confirm Judge Alito. I, for one, really
believe there comes a time when you just have to stand up, particularly
when you know the majority of people stand as you do. And I don't
make that statement simply based on my gut instincts. It is reflected in
the polls we see.

A Gallup poll released earlier this week, January 24, stated that 63
percent of Americans do not want to see Roe overturned. And that is
backed up by other polls.

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released earlier this month, January
9, said a majority of Americans, 56 percent, do not believe Judge Alito
should be confirmed if his confirmation hearings reveal he would vote to
overturn a woman's right to have an abortion.

Around here when it comes to the issue of abortion the tail wags the
dog. The minority is the dominant voice, while the majority of people
out there feel very differently on the question. A majority of people, it
is
clear, in the United States of America believe that a woman should have
certain rights of privacy -- privacy that is limited by the State's interest
to
protect potential life, but a certain right to privacy. If you know this
nominee is not going to respect those rights but holds differing views,
then you have to stand up.

I am very concerned about the impact Judge Alito could have on
women's rights, including a woman's right to make certain reproductive
choices as limited by State regulation.

When the issues of Roe and precedent came up during the hearings
for Chief Justice Roberts, he engaged in a conversation with me and
other Senators. He acknowledged that Roe is well settled. He discussed
the different factors the Court considered when Casey affirmed the
central holding of Roe. In fact, during Judge Alito's hearings, I read part
of the Roberts transcript to him and I gave him an opportunity to review
it. I then asked him to tell me where he differed from Chief Justice
Roberts and if he, too, believed Roe is well settled. He responded this
way:

I think that depends on what one means by the term well settled.

That was after reading an explicit and full description of what the
now Chief Justice had said before us. His response clearly indicated, at
least in my view, that he didn't regard precedent that highly.

I next tried to talk to him about his legal views and what he meant
when he said "precedent is not an inexorable command." I specifically
stated:

Those are the words that Justice Rehnquist used arguing for the
overturning of Roe. So my question is did you mean it that way?

The most Judge Alito would say is this:

The statement that precedent is not an inexorable command is a
statement that has been in the Supreme Court case law for a long
period of time. And sitting here, I can't remember what the origin of
it is....

In providing nothing more than this for an explanation, Judge Alito
spoke volumes about his view on Roe. I listened carefully to the
testimony of many legal scholars, including professors in constitutional
law. One I want to quote, and I quoted it in the committee as well
because it meant a great deal to me, is a professor of constitutional law at
Harvard, Professor Larry Tribe. He said that, with the addition of Judge
Alito:

The Court will cut back on Roe v. Wade, step by step, not just to the
point where, as the moderate American center has it, abortion is
cautiously restricted, but to the point where the fundamental
underlying right to liberty becomes a hollow shell.

It is important to remember that Roe, as modified by Casey, is in fact
a moderate compromise that considers both sides of the question.
Together, Roe and Casey protect women's privacy interest but also allow
States to pass regulations to restrict that interest postviability.

If you look carefully at Judge Alito's decisions in three cases --
Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Blackwell v. Knoll, and Planned
Parenthood v. Farmer -- you will see in his writing where serious
questions of his views arise. While sustaining Roe in these cases, Judge
Alito's opinions also raised serious questions indicating if Judge Alito
was not bound by precedent, or there was a gray area, he would weaken
Roe by narrowly interpreting what constitutes an undue burden, since in
his dissent in Casey, Judge Alito argued that spousal notification was not
an undue burden - a position rejected by the Supreme Court.

Judge Alito may have a different interpretation of when life begins
that could dramatically alter the Court's rulings and impact women's
access to contraception. This concern was highlighted when in
Alexander v. Whitman, Judge Alito wrote a separate opinion to clarify
that he disagreed with the Court's "suggestion that there could be
'human beings' who are not 'constitutional persons.'"

Judge Alito may not agree with the Supreme Court's holding in Roe
that a woman's health must be protected for a law to be constitutional.
This issue was raised in Planned Parenthood v. Farmer where Judge
Alito agreed with the decision of the Court to strike down a New Jersey
abortion law. However, he asserted that the Court's opinion, including
the discussion about the lack of a health exception, was "never
necessary."

In addition, I was deeply troubled by Judge Alito's 1985 job
application. Let me tell you where he was in 1985. He was not a
youngster. Senator Durbin pointed this out in the Judiciary Committee.
He had already clerked at a New Jersey law firm. He had already
clerked for a Federal court of appeals judge. He had spent 4 years as an
assistant U.S. attorney, and he had spent 4 years as Assistant to the
Solicitor General in the Department of Justice, and he had argued 12
cases on behalf of the Federal Government before the Supreme Court
and numerous other cases before the Federal courts of appeals. So this
was not some naive ingenue coming down the pike, trying to get a job in
the administration. He filled out the job application and gratuitously
added these words, that he believed "the Constitution does not protect a
right to an abortion." He was not asked the question; he simply added
those words. Why would you do that if you have argued 12 cases before
the Supreme Court, if you spent 4 years as an assistant U.S. attorney, if
you have argued before Federal circuit courts, you have clerked for
judges -- why would you do it unless it was a deeply held view of yours
that you wanted to express?

I asked him about this privately in my office and he said that he was
attempting to get a political appointment. But he also told me that the
application speaks for itself and he did not disavow what he wrote. That
spoke volumes about where he is today. It is pretty clear to me that,
given a chance, he would vote to overthrow Roe.

He also wrote in that same application:

In college, I developed a deep interest in constitutional law,
motivated in large part by disagreement with Warren Court
decisions, particularly in the areas of criminal procedure, the
Establishment Clause, and reapportionment.

The Warren Court's reapportionment decisions established the
principle of one man, one vote, and they stopped the abhorrent practice
of diluting votes by making some voting districts larger than others. For
example, prior to these decisions some voting districts in the same State
were 41 times the size of others.

As an attorney with the Solicitor General's Office of the Department
of Justice, Judge Alito argued three affirmative action cases, each time
urging the Supreme Court to strike down affirmative action programs.
The arguments he made in these cases are contrary to the Supreme
Court's subsequent decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, another 5-4 decision
where Sandra Day O'Connor was the decisive fifth vote. In Grutter, the
Court held that the University of Michigan and other colleges and
universities receiving Government funding could consider race,
ethnicity, and gender in school admissions policies in order to encourage
a diverse student body.

Judge Alito encouraged the Senate to judge him on his 15-year
record on the Third Circuit. An examination of this record reveals a
judge who tends to rule against civil rights more often than his
colleagues. A review of Judge Alito's opinions by Yale Law School
professors concluded that in the area of civil rights law, he consistently
used procedural and evidentiary standards to rule against female,
minority, age, and disability claimants. Similarly, a review of 311
published opinions by Knight-Ridder found that, although his opinions
were rarely written with obvious ideology, he seldom sided with an
employee alleging discrimination.

Here again, there is a case, Riley v. Taylor, that is particularly
troubling. This case took place in Delaware, where prosecutors had
excluded every African-American juror in all four of its first-degree
murder trials that had taken place in a Delaware county that year. A
majority of the Third Circuit, sitting en banc, concluded that excluding
every Black juror in four State murder trials was evidence of race-based
discrimination. I would conclude that, too. The Court noted that it is not
"necessary to have a sophisticated analysis by a statistician to conclude
that there is little chance of randomly selecting four consecutive all white
juries."

Judge Alito dissented. In contrast, he argued that "there is little
chance of randomly selecting left-handers in five out of six Presidential
elections. But does it follow that the voters cast their ballots based on
whether a candidate was right- or left-handed?"

This dissent demonstrates a failure to grasp the critical point. Left-
handed individuals have not suffered the long history of discrimination in
this country the way African Americans have. I think to use that, as a
Federal appellate court judge, as a bona fide argument to say that you can
have four consecutive murder trials in a county and exclude every
African American from the jury shows you have a mode of thinking that
is not in the mainstream of American legal thinking.

So, bottom line, based on all of the information before me, I have
decided to vote against Judge Alito's confirmation. Mine is a vote that is
made with the belief that a person's legal reasoning and judicial
philosophy, especially at a time of crisis, at times of conflict, and at
times
of controversy, do mean a great deal. It is my belief that this nominee's
legal philosophy and views will essentially swing the Court far out of the
mainstream, toward legal philosophy and views that do not reflect the
majority views of this country. I will vote no. I urge my colleagues to
vote no.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a list of
California organizations that oppose Judge Alito's confirmation and a set
of letters from pro-choice organizations following my full remarks, and I
yield the floor.





Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

http://feinstein.senate.gov

Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and
the Nation are available at my website
http://feinstein.senate.gov. You can also receive electronic e-mail updates
by subscribing to my e-mail list at
http://feinstein.senate.gov/issue.html.