skunk
Jan 20, 2006, 07:32 AM
Not that I'm a fan of the Chappaquiddick Kid, but this speech is very good:
Sen. Kennedy Speaks on the Nomination of Samuel Alito
Thursday, January 19, 2006; 5:10 PM
JANUARY 19, 2006
SPEAKER: U.S. SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY (D-MA)
KENNEDY: It's an honor to be here to address all of you on the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. As you know so well, the stakes for our nation could not be higher. This is the vote of a generation. If confirmed, this nominee will have an enormous impact on our basic rights and liberties for years and even decades to come.
The Alito hearings, as well as those for Chief Justice Roberts before them, show the need for change in the way that we learn a nominee's views on our laws and the Constitution. Instead of a free and honest exchange of ideas, our hearings have become stylized and choreographed appearances in which the nominees are coached to say as little as possible.
And when it comes to lifetime appointments to the highest court in the land, surely the American people deserve better. After all, the Supreme Court is the guardian of our most cherished rights and freedoms. They are protected by the most solemn promises of the Constitution and symbolized in four eloquent words inscribed above the entrance to the Supreme Court: "Equal Justice Under Law. "
Those words are meant to guarantee that our courts will be an independent check against abuses of power by the other two branches of government. It is a commitment that our courts will always be a place where the poor and the powerless and the underprivileged can stand on equal footing with the wealthy and the powerful and the privileged. And the Senate has a constitutional duty to ensure that any person confirmed to the court will uphold that clear ideal.
The nomination of Judge Alito is particularly significant because it comes at a time of new challenges for the nation and for the court.
Suddenly, in this new century, we are faced with unprecedented claims by the White House for sweeping expansions of presidential power that are grave threats to the rule of law.
Despite progress in recent decades, we continue to face serious inequalities and injustices in our society, as demonstrated so clearly by the immense tragedy a few months ago in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
We face new controversies over governmental intrusion into people's private lives -- from the interference with personal medical decisions on how long a loved one should be kept on life support, to new attempts to limit or even deny a woman's reproductive decisions.
We face new attacks on the progress that we have made in civil rights. The signs proclaiming "whites only" may be gone, but we know that discrimination and bigotry in countless other manifestations still blights our societies and limits opportunity.
One of the most important of all the responsibilities of the Supreme Court is to enforce the constitutional limitations on presidential power. A justice must have the courage and the wisdom to speak truth to power, to tell even the president that he has gone too far.
Chief Justice John Marshall was that kind of justice when he told President Jefferson that he had exceeded his war-making powers under the Constitution.
Justice Robert Jackson was that kind of justice when he told President Truman that he could not misuse the Korean War as an excuse to take over the nation's steel mills.
Chief Justice Warren Burger was that kind of justice when he told President Nixon to turn over the White House tapes on Watergate.
And Sandra Day O'Connor, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, was that kind of justice when she told President Bush that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens.
We need that kind of justice on the court as much as ever. For today, we have a president who believes that torture can be an acceptable practice despite laws and treaties that explicitly prohibit it; we have a president who claims the power to arrest American citizens on American soil, jail them for years without the benefit of counsel or access to the courts; we have a president who claims that he has the authority to spy on American citizens on American soil without a court order.
The record of Judge Alito is clear and ominous. Examine his writings. Read the transcript of the hearings. Consider the cases he's decided. The record demonstrates that we cannot count on Judge Alito to blow the whistle when the president is out of bounds.
Judge Alito is a longstanding advocate of the expansion of executive power, even at the expense of individual liberty. His statements show that he favors a far greater role for the president than is currently recognized by the Supreme Court.
In his now notorious job application to the Justice Department, he cast doubts on the role of the courts as well. He said, "I believe very strongly ... in the supremacy of the elected branches of government."
He never explained his reason for advocating such an extraordinary departure from the basic understanding of the Constitution, that the courts are intended to be co-equal with the president and the Congress. And when asked about the extreme statement, he said only that it was "inapt." That's certainly true, but it does not begin to tell the American people why he would make a statement so at odds with basic system of checks and balances that have guided our democracy for two centuries.
Judge Alito's testimony gave us no clue, but one thing is clear. If the elected branches become supreme, the Supreme Court will not be able to fulfill its historic role of enforcing constitutional limits on presidential power. His statement may have been music to the ears of the Reagan Justice Department, but it was a shock of a thousand volts to all of us who care about our democracy and the rule of law.
Judge Alito's consistent advocacy of what he called "the gospel" of the "unitary executive" is just as troubling. Professor Steven Calabresi, one of the originators of the unitary executive theory and a co-founder of the Federalist Society, has acknowledged that if the concept is implemented, it would produce a radical change in how the government operates.
As he wrote in the Harvard Law Review in 1992, "The practical consequences of this theory is dramatic: It renders unconstitutional independent agencies and counsels to the extent that they exercise discretionary executive power."
Independent agencies, such as the Federal Election Commission, created to see that our voting laws are properly enforced and interpreted, would be subject to the president's control.
The same is true of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is charged with preventing corporate abuses such as we recently saw in the case of Enron, with tragic consequences for American workers.
It would compromise the historic independence of the Federal Reserve Board, giving the president unprecedented and dangerous power to manipulate the economy.
It would compromise the mission of every agency created to protect hardworking Americans from the exploitation of those who care only about profits, not the health and the welfare and the very safety of their employees.
Nor is the impact of this bizarre theory limited to the independence of administrative agencies. It has a major effect on other assertions of presidential power as well.
Discussing President Bush's aggressive claims for unprecedented executive power in the field of national security, even Professor Calabresi stated recently that without accepting such a theory, there would be no way that President Bush's anti-terrorism policies could be constitutionally justified.
During his confirmation hearing, Judge Alito attempted to downplay his extreme view of executive power. But he did not disavow them. He refused to candidly discuss his current views of the constitutional limits on presidential power. Instead, he pointed to the Supreme Court's rejection of the unitary executive theory. He cited the court's decision affirming that independent agencies who investigate executive branch abuses can be removed from the presidential control.
But a speech he gave in 2000 to the Federalist Society provides an insight into his real view. He stated that he believed that the theory of unitary executive best captures the meaning of the Constitution's text and structure.
He went on to strongly criticize those rulings rejecting the theory of the unitary executive.
He then outlined a strategy for bypassing the court's precedents, including the same independent counsel case he claimed to support in testimony before the Judiciary Committee last week.
When Judge Alito made that speech, he was not applying for a job in the Justice Department. He'd already been serving as an appellate judge for 10 years.
The timing of the speech to the Federalist Society may be significant. In November 2000, the Florida recount was on and the right wing was salivating over the prospect that George Bush would prevail in that close election. Judge Alito may well have been submitting his application for a Supreme Court nomination.
Judge Alito also failed to satisfactorily explain his controversial advice as a Justice Department official that "the president's understanding of a bill should be just as important as that of Congress."
He recommended that when the President signs a bill passed by Congress, he should issue a signing statement announcing his own interpretation of the law in the hope of influencing the way courts would construe the law.
That proposal was clearly the recommendation of an activist seeking to reduce the power of Congress and expand the presidential power beyond its traditional boundary. More...
Sen. Kennedy Speaks on the Nomination of Samuel Alito
Thursday, January 19, 2006; 5:10 PM
JANUARY 19, 2006
SPEAKER: U.S. SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY (D-MA)
KENNEDY: It's an honor to be here to address all of you on the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. As you know so well, the stakes for our nation could not be higher. This is the vote of a generation. If confirmed, this nominee will have an enormous impact on our basic rights and liberties for years and even decades to come.
The Alito hearings, as well as those for Chief Justice Roberts before them, show the need for change in the way that we learn a nominee's views on our laws and the Constitution. Instead of a free and honest exchange of ideas, our hearings have become stylized and choreographed appearances in which the nominees are coached to say as little as possible.
And when it comes to lifetime appointments to the highest court in the land, surely the American people deserve better. After all, the Supreme Court is the guardian of our most cherished rights and freedoms. They are protected by the most solemn promises of the Constitution and symbolized in four eloquent words inscribed above the entrance to the Supreme Court: "Equal Justice Under Law. "
Those words are meant to guarantee that our courts will be an independent check against abuses of power by the other two branches of government. It is a commitment that our courts will always be a place where the poor and the powerless and the underprivileged can stand on equal footing with the wealthy and the powerful and the privileged. And the Senate has a constitutional duty to ensure that any person confirmed to the court will uphold that clear ideal.
The nomination of Judge Alito is particularly significant because it comes at a time of new challenges for the nation and for the court.
Suddenly, in this new century, we are faced with unprecedented claims by the White House for sweeping expansions of presidential power that are grave threats to the rule of law.
Despite progress in recent decades, we continue to face serious inequalities and injustices in our society, as demonstrated so clearly by the immense tragedy a few months ago in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
We face new controversies over governmental intrusion into people's private lives -- from the interference with personal medical decisions on how long a loved one should be kept on life support, to new attempts to limit or even deny a woman's reproductive decisions.
We face new attacks on the progress that we have made in civil rights. The signs proclaiming "whites only" may be gone, but we know that discrimination and bigotry in countless other manifestations still blights our societies and limits opportunity.
One of the most important of all the responsibilities of the Supreme Court is to enforce the constitutional limitations on presidential power. A justice must have the courage and the wisdom to speak truth to power, to tell even the president that he has gone too far.
Chief Justice John Marshall was that kind of justice when he told President Jefferson that he had exceeded his war-making powers under the Constitution.
Justice Robert Jackson was that kind of justice when he told President Truman that he could not misuse the Korean War as an excuse to take over the nation's steel mills.
Chief Justice Warren Burger was that kind of justice when he told President Nixon to turn over the White House tapes on Watergate.
And Sandra Day O'Connor, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, was that kind of justice when she told President Bush that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens.
We need that kind of justice on the court as much as ever. For today, we have a president who believes that torture can be an acceptable practice despite laws and treaties that explicitly prohibit it; we have a president who claims the power to arrest American citizens on American soil, jail them for years without the benefit of counsel or access to the courts; we have a president who claims that he has the authority to spy on American citizens on American soil without a court order.
The record of Judge Alito is clear and ominous. Examine his writings. Read the transcript of the hearings. Consider the cases he's decided. The record demonstrates that we cannot count on Judge Alito to blow the whistle when the president is out of bounds.
Judge Alito is a longstanding advocate of the expansion of executive power, even at the expense of individual liberty. His statements show that he favors a far greater role for the president than is currently recognized by the Supreme Court.
In his now notorious job application to the Justice Department, he cast doubts on the role of the courts as well. He said, "I believe very strongly ... in the supremacy of the elected branches of government."
He never explained his reason for advocating such an extraordinary departure from the basic understanding of the Constitution, that the courts are intended to be co-equal with the president and the Congress. And when asked about the extreme statement, he said only that it was "inapt." That's certainly true, but it does not begin to tell the American people why he would make a statement so at odds with basic system of checks and balances that have guided our democracy for two centuries.
Judge Alito's testimony gave us no clue, but one thing is clear. If the elected branches become supreme, the Supreme Court will not be able to fulfill its historic role of enforcing constitutional limits on presidential power. His statement may have been music to the ears of the Reagan Justice Department, but it was a shock of a thousand volts to all of us who care about our democracy and the rule of law.
Judge Alito's consistent advocacy of what he called "the gospel" of the "unitary executive" is just as troubling. Professor Steven Calabresi, one of the originators of the unitary executive theory and a co-founder of the Federalist Society, has acknowledged that if the concept is implemented, it would produce a radical change in how the government operates.
As he wrote in the Harvard Law Review in 1992, "The practical consequences of this theory is dramatic: It renders unconstitutional independent agencies and counsels to the extent that they exercise discretionary executive power."
Independent agencies, such as the Federal Election Commission, created to see that our voting laws are properly enforced and interpreted, would be subject to the president's control.
The same is true of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is charged with preventing corporate abuses such as we recently saw in the case of Enron, with tragic consequences for American workers.
It would compromise the historic independence of the Federal Reserve Board, giving the president unprecedented and dangerous power to manipulate the economy.
It would compromise the mission of every agency created to protect hardworking Americans from the exploitation of those who care only about profits, not the health and the welfare and the very safety of their employees.
Nor is the impact of this bizarre theory limited to the independence of administrative agencies. It has a major effect on other assertions of presidential power as well.
Discussing President Bush's aggressive claims for unprecedented executive power in the field of national security, even Professor Calabresi stated recently that without accepting such a theory, there would be no way that President Bush's anti-terrorism policies could be constitutionally justified.
During his confirmation hearing, Judge Alito attempted to downplay his extreme view of executive power. But he did not disavow them. He refused to candidly discuss his current views of the constitutional limits on presidential power. Instead, he pointed to the Supreme Court's rejection of the unitary executive theory. He cited the court's decision affirming that independent agencies who investigate executive branch abuses can be removed from the presidential control.
But a speech he gave in 2000 to the Federalist Society provides an insight into his real view. He stated that he believed that the theory of unitary executive best captures the meaning of the Constitution's text and structure.
He went on to strongly criticize those rulings rejecting the theory of the unitary executive.
He then outlined a strategy for bypassing the court's precedents, including the same independent counsel case he claimed to support in testimony before the Judiciary Committee last week.
When Judge Alito made that speech, he was not applying for a job in the Justice Department. He'd already been serving as an appellate judge for 10 years.
The timing of the speech to the Federalist Society may be significant. In November 2000, the Florida recount was on and the right wing was salivating over the prospect that George Bush would prevail in that close election. Judge Alito may well have been submitting his application for a Supreme Court nomination.
Judge Alito also failed to satisfactorily explain his controversial advice as a Justice Department official that "the president's understanding of a bill should be just as important as that of Congress."
He recommended that when the President signs a bill passed by Congress, he should issue a signing statement announcing his own interpretation of the law in the hope of influencing the way courts would construe the law.
That proposal was clearly the recommendation of an activist seeking to reduce the power of Congress and expand the presidential power beyond its traditional boundary. More...
