Alito's hidden talents

[RealGun]

To me, the fact that he's using "Well, I was working under Reagan and trying to get into positions" as an EXCUSE for why he'd said what he said back in 1988 on various issues is pretty much saying "I am a monkey. I will stand on my head or peel a banana or play a drum for you if you can elevate my position, I have no shame and will say anything even if I don't mean it."

Haven't we had enough of that sort?

Except that he didn't say that and wouldn't.

 

[RealGun]

I'd act like a trained animal to get on the supreme court. Doesnt mean I would stop being pro gun and pro liberty. You guys need to stop looking for excuses to hate what is obviously a win for our side.

The real battle comes when one of the leftists retires, if such a thing transpires during this administration. That really would change the balance of the court on many many issues. They all seem in reasonably good health unfortunately.

To tag Alito as pro-gun is a leap IMO. All he said is that Congress failed to include a "finding of fact" in the law, and that such was the reason the law was struck down. It was technical and expressed nothing about guns pro or con.

 

[publius]

The machine gun case was not about the 2nd amendment. Maybe it should have been, but it was not. It was about the commerce clause, and on first glance, Alito looks better than I could expect:

The activity that the Lopez Court found was not "economic"
or "connected with a commercial transaction" was a type of
intrastate firearm possession, i.e., the possession of a firearm
(including a machine gun) within a school zone. At issue here is
another type of purely intrastate firearm possession, i.e., the
purely intrastate possession of a machine gun. If the former
must be regarded as non-economic and non-commercial, why isn't
the same true of the latter? Is possession of a machine gun
inherently more "economic" or more "commercial" than possession
of other firearms? [Footnote 4] Is the possession of a firearm
within a school zone somehow less "economic" and "commercial"
than possession elsewhere--say, on one's own property? [Footnote
5] If there are distinctions of constitutional dimension here,
they are too subtle for me to grasp. It seems to me that the
most natural reading of Lopez is that the simple possession of a
firearm, without more, is not "economic" or "commercial" activity
in the same sense as the production of wheat in Wickard and that
therefore such possession cannot be regulated under the Wickard
theory.

That's good, but earlier in the same dissent, he said this:

Moreover, the statute challenged here would satisfy the demands
of the Commerce Clause if Congress simply added a jurisdictional
element--a common feature of federal laws in this field and one
that has not posed any noticeable problems for federal law
enforcement. In addition, as I explain below, 18 U.S.C. section
922(o) might be sustainable in its current form if Congress made
findings that the purely intrastate possession of machine guns
has a substantial effect on interstate commerce or if Congress or
the Executive assembled empirical evidence documenting such a
link.

Anyone remember what happened after the Lopez decision? In case you don't, here's what happened: Congress passed the federal Gun Free School Zones Act once again (see 922 (q)) in 1996, this time with new language, doing just what Alito suggests above. The attached a jurisdictional element, and attached findings saying that possession of a gun near a school affects interstate commerce.

In other words, they used Lopez as a drafting guide. Now, let's see... where have I heard that phrase before?

 

[beerslurpy]

I suspect Alito was avoiding fighting battles he couldnt win. He basically took lopez and tried to run with it as far as he could but no further. No further because Lopez and Morrison were considered revolutionary in that they were the first cases in nearly 60 years to partly reverse Wickard, which was otherwise the controlling precedent in Commerce Clause cases.

I think Alito recognized that the supremes were still some ways from overturning wickard in any significant way and simply wanted to test the redrawn bounds of the Commerce Clause. 922(o) would have been an easy case from a legal standpoint and not really a big deal from a political standpoint. It wouldnt have really affected a ton of people, unlike declaring social security, the controlled substances act or the FDA unconstitutional.

He has been a judge for 15 years already, I am sure he is familar with the pace at which change takes place in constitutional jurisprudence. Building up a bunch of easy and seemingly uninmportant small victories is what it takes to perform turnarounds like Plessy > Brown. Unfortunately the next Commerce Clause case was about marijuana, so Scalia backtracked and all the leftists naturally lept at the chance to roll back the feeble lopez precedent.

 

[publius]

UNITED STATES of America,

v.

Raymond RYBAR, Jr., Appellant.

No. 95-3185.

United States Court of Appeals,Third Circuit.

Argued Sept. 13, 1995.

Decided Dec. 30, 1996.

Decided Dec. 30, 1996, by which time we had a brand new Gun Free School Zones Act, complete with Congressional findings. Alito is suggesting he would uphold the new law, meaning if we get a Lopez II, he'll vote with the left wing of the Court.

 

[Guy B. Meredith]

Who can Bush nominate? This editorial has the answer (not to hijack the thread).

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/12/EDGIAGLF1E1.DTL

In part:

"IF BY SOME bizarre twist of fate, the Senate fails to confirm Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, I have a suggestion for President Bush's next pick: Ted Kennedy. After all, if some Democrats can make a federal case out of Alito's membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton -- targeting his inclusion of that membership in a resume he submitted 20 years ago and his failure to remember being in the group -- then I'd like to see how they tackle Chappaquiddick.

(For you kids, the Massachusetts senator drove a car into the drink in Chappaquiddick in 1969. Kennedy swam away, passenger Mary Jo Kopechne, 28, drowned. The accident was tragic. Kennedy's behavior afterward, however, was criminal. Rather than rushing to police after the 11:15 p.m. accident so that they could try to rescue Kopechne, Kennedy went back to his hotel. He did not call police until the next morning. Kennedy said he delayed because he panicked and was in shock. Many suspect that he spent those hours trying to construct an alibi. After an investigation probably less intense than the Democrats' vetting of Alito's resumes, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident. A judge sentenced Kennedy to two months, suspended.) "