Editorial from The Guide	Editorials Archive

In newspapers, television reports, and press releases, President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court Samuel Alito is billed as a "conservative." Indeed, Alito boasts of his conservative judicial outlook, and pundits suggest his conservatism was a key factor in Bush's nomination.

For most people, political conservatism embraces key principles: limited governmental intrusion into peoples' lives and commerce, a commitment to individual freedom, a government reined in by checks and balances, and an appreciation for the stability lent society through respect for legal precedent.

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By all these measures Samuel Alito is no conservative.

In 1985, Alito-- then applying for a job in Reagan's Justice Department-- boasted of his hostility to privacy rights, his eagerness to overturn curbs on police powers, and even attacked the legal precedents establishing the one-person, one-vote doctrine. He announced unequivocally that he was dedicated to undoing the work of civil rights-expanding Warren Court.

Now when Senate confirmation hearings demand the nominee profess an unbiased neutrality, such a patent ideological agenda is a political liability. And indeed, Alito is now whistling a different tune, saying he respects precedent, that he has no agenda, that he is not an ideologue.

But Alito's history in the Justice Department and later on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reveal his current protestations of judicial impartiality are born of political convenience, not the truth.

Under Reagan, Alito argued that abortion, and by implication the doctrine of privacy, is not a constitutional right. He attacked judicial rulings granting those arrested the right to counsel and the right to be informed of their legal rights. In 1986, when the facts and myths of HIV's transmissibility were well-known, Alito argued that an employer's fear of contagion, though "irrational," was nonetheless grounds for firing any HIV-positive employee.

As a judge, Alito has argued for enormous erosion of search and seizure restrictions. An otherwise illegal search of a person's house can be allowed if the police were acting in "good faith." This is an easy assertion for police to make, and one that courts, thus, need always be skeptical of. But according to Alito, police actions are almost by definition "in good faith," and they should be able to search virtually anyone, anytime, for any reason, thus gutting the Fourth Amendment's protection against arbitrary searches and seizures.

In a just society, people cannot be tried over and over again for the same crime, nor can the state change the rules after a conviction to force a prisoner to serve a harsher penalty than originally convicted for. But Alito has used sex and pornography cases to erode protections against double jeopardy and ex post facto punishments; with Alito, the rule of law disappears, replaced by legislative fiat.

And Alito has denied death penalty appeals on trivial technical grounds. According to Bush's Supreme Court nominee, executing a possibly innocent man is okay if his appeal was filed improperly.

Gay people could celebrate a real conservative's nomination to the Supreme Court, for a genuine conservative respects individual freedom, is repulsed by government intrusions into people's bedrooms, and values fair play and equal justice under the law.

But Alito has announced his opposition to a meaningful interpretation of the Bill of Rights; indeed, he would have us renounce the freedoms outlined in the Magna Carta. And Alito has pledged to work vigorously for repealing the civil liberties we currently enjoy.

Samuel Alito is a reactionary activist in faux-conservative clothing. His elevation to the Supreme Court would be a disaster for constitutional government. The Senate should send him packing.