The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 69/No. 45           November 21, 2005  
 
 
A solid pro-business front on U.S. high court
 
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS  
With Senate hearings set to open soon on President George Bush’s nomination of Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court, a slew of articles in the press have depicted the nominee as “pro-business.” A November 1 Los Angeles Times article, for example, headlined “Court Nominee Has Free-Market Bent,” described Alito as “often expressing skepticism about government regulation of business.” The nominee “has a strong free-market philosophy likely to please corporate America,” it said. The implication that others on the high court, like O’Connor, don’t have such a “bent” is aimed at winning support for the Democratic Party.

Alito’s “pro-business slant,” however, is the same as that of all nine justices on the high court. In fact, O’Connor, who voted to uphold the Roe v. Wade ruling decriminalizing abortion and who is often described as a “moderate,” has a solid record of rulings that were “the most pro-business of any justice,” said the July 10 Newsday.

O’Connor consistently voted “to curb what she viewed as excessive financial awards to plaintiffs in the form of punitive damages and forcing prosecutors to prove that companies intended to break the law to win criminal convictions,” noted a July 2 Washington Post article. In 1992, O’Connor wrote the majority opinion in Gade v. National Solid Waste Management Association, forbidding states from enforcing more stringent job safety standards than those mandated by the federal government. She struck down a provision in the Americans with Disabilities Act that let disabled state employees sue for discrimination.

Embracing the liberals’ arguments on Alito is the People’s Weekly World, which reflects the views of the Communist Party USA. An article in its November 5 issue said the nomination is an “offensive against mainstream democratic and progressive America.”

Those singling out Alito’s record cite his 1991 dissenting opinion while on the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey case, where he backed a requirement by the state of Pennsylvania that women must inform their husbands before obtaining an abortion. Groups like Planned Parenthood say this shows that if confirmed Alito would vote to overturn Roe.

Supreme Court rulings, however, are not determined by a judge’s record but by shifts in the class struggle and prevailing social attitudes. The Roe v. Wade ruling was a product of the women’s liberation movement and the general radicalization at the time. The rise of the Black movement and other social struggles, in addition to the influx of women into the workforce since World War II, helped create an atmosphere that spurred changing views on abortion.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home