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For Immediate Release: Monday, October 31, 2005
Contact: Ranit Schmelzer or Jenice Robinson, 202-588-5180, www.nwlc.org
JUDGE ALITO’S RECORD HIGHLY TROUBLING ON WOMEN’S RIGHTS
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Judge Alito’s record is especially alarming because he has been nominated to fill the seat vacated by Justice O’Connor, who was the critical swing vote in many cases that were significant to women’s rights. His confirmation has the potential to roll back core legal protections that Americans, especially women, have relied on for decades.
“It’s no secret that Justice O’Connor was the fifth vote in many 5-4 decisions that protected women’s fundamental rights and freedoms,” said Marcia D. Greenberger, Co-President of the National Women’s Law Center. “In nominating Judge Alito, President Bush has chosen someone who threatens the very existence of core legal rights that Americans, especially women, have relied on for decades.
“Instead of naming a consensus nominee, President Bush has opted to pick someone who meets the far right’s ideological litmus test,” Greenberger added.
Some troubling examples that reveal Judge Alito’s judicial philosophy:
n Judge Alito has opposed Congress’s power to act on issues that are central to the lives of women and all Americans. He wrote a strong dissent from a decision upholding Congress’s power to ban the possession and transfer of machine guns. In another opinion he ruled against Congress’s power to enact important provisions of the Family and Medical Leave Act.
n On women’s reproductive rights, he was the lone dissenter on his court in Casey v. Planned Parenthood. Unlike the rest of the court, and the majority of the Supreme Court, he would have upheld a state law requiring women to notify their husbands before having an abortion. He also refused to join the opinion of his court striking down a state ban on abortion procedures that had no exception to protect a woman’s health, and wrote his own opinion making clear he went along with the court’s decision only because as a lower court judge he was bound to follow a Supreme Court decision requiring that the law be struck down.
n He has issued decisions making it harder for victims of race and sex discrimination to prove their cases. In one case, he was the lone dissenter from a decision joined by all 12 of the Third Circuit’s other judges that allowed a claim to go forward where a woman had alleged that, because of her sex, she was denied a promotion, retaliated against for complaining, and then forced out of her job.
“Judge Alito looks a lot more like Justice Scalia than Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who had a record of being open-minded and was a key swing vote for women’s rights,” Greenberger said.
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