[Mb-civic] No Right to Abortion, Alito Argued in 1985 - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

No Right to Abortion, Alito Argued in 1985
Reagan-Era Papers Show Staunch Conservatism

By Jo Becker and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 15, 2005; Page A01

As a young lawyer in the Reagan administration, Supreme Court nominee 
Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote that "the Constitution does not protect a 
right to an abortion," declared his firm opposition to certain 
affirmative action programs, and strongly endorsed a government role in 
"protecting traditional values."

The comments came in a job application to then-Attorney General Edwin I. 
Meese III in 1985, when Alito was seeking to bolster his conservative 
credentials and move up at the Justice Department. Alito was 
subsequently promoted to deputy assistant attorney general.

Alito, an assistant in the Office of the Solicitor General at the time, 
said he was "particularly proud" of his contributions to cases in which 
the Reagan administration had argued before the Supreme Court that 
"racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the 
Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion." He said it had 
been a "source of great personal satisfaction" to help advance such 
legal causes -- positions that he said "I personally believe very strongly."

The letter was included in 168 pages of documents released yesterday by 
the National Archives. The documents portray an ideologically committed 
conservative and offer the first public articulation of Alito's personal 
political philosophy as he portrayed it five years before his 
appointment as a federal appeals court judge.

With Alito's confirmation hearings scheduled to begin Jan. 9, the papers 
provoked swift reaction on Capitol Hill and among both liberal and 
conservative interest groups.

Opponents charged that the documents offer further evidence that Alito 
would vote to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision recognizing a 
constitutional right to abortion and would roll back civil rights and 
protections of religious freedom. Defenders said that Alito would put 
aside personal views and base his rulings on the law and a respect for 
Supreme Court precedent.

In his application to Meese, first reported yesterday in the Washington 
Times, Alito wrote that "I am and always have been a conservative" and 
described "the greatest influences on my views" as the writings of 
William F. Buckley Jr., founder of the conservative National Review, and 
Republican Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. Alito said he 
was "a life-long registered Republican" who had made political 
contributions to a number of GOP campaigns in his home state of New 
Jersey as well as conservative national political action committees.

"I believe very strongly in limited government, federalism, free 
enterprise, the supremacy of the elected branches of government, the 
need for a strong defense and effective law enforcement, and the 
legitimacy of a government role in protecting traditional values," he 
wrote. "In the field of law, I disagree strenuously with the usurpation 
by the judiciary of decision-making authority that should be exercised 
by the branches of government responsible to the electorate."

His interest in constitutional law, Alito said, was "motivated in large 
part" by disagreement with Supreme Court decisions in the 1950s and 
1960s, when the high court was led by Chief Justice Earl Warren. Alito 
said he was particularly disturbed by its rulings "in the areas of 
criminal procedure, the Establishment Clause and reapportionment."

The Warren Court ruled that police had to inform criminal suspects of 
their rights before questioning them, that indigent defendants had a 
right to counsel and that improperly seized evidence could not be used 
at trial. It found that the establishment clause of the First Amendment 
prohibited public schools from holding organized Bible reading or 
prayer. And it established a one-man, one-vote principle by mandating 
that political districts be drawn in such a way as to be roughly equal 
in population.

Alito said his intellectual development was further shaped by the 
writings of the late Alexander M. Bickel, a Yale Law School professor 
and a leading constitutional conservative. Bickel was a mentor to and 
close friend of Robert H. Bork, who was nominated to the Supreme Court 
in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan but did not win confirmation amid a 
storm of controversy.

Bickel denounced the "results-orientation" of the Warren court and, like 
many other conservatives, agreed with then-Justice Byron R. White, who 
in his dissent described the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision as an 
"extravagant exercise of judicial power." The Roe decision concluded 
that a right to privacy includes the right to abortion.

(continued)...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/14/AR2005111400720.html?nav=hcmodule
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