A couple of rays of hope

There are a couple of rays of hope on the Judge Alito front this morning. Actually, I learned about one of them yesterday and forgot to write it up in my late-night, minor-depression-fueled blogging frenzy.

Anyway, in an affort to start today off on a hopeful note, as well as in the interest of truth...

The first glimmer of hope that Alito may not be what it appeared he was going to be: On his first ruling on The Court, he ended up opposite Justices Roberts, Scalia and Thomas (and with the rest of the Justices) in his opinion.

Now, I don't know enough about the case to comment on whether this is a ruling I agree with, and I still think it's possible that, although there is no earthly legal reason why he'd need to do so, it could be a psychological needs on his part to try to demonstrate his independence from the extremists he's been so closely tied to in the media.

Nevertheless, this bodes well for Alito perhaps not being the vote-in-lock-step-with-the-conservative-extremists that he's been portrayed as.

The second ray of Alito-related hope this morning is more information on the much-discussed Vanguard case in which Alito failed to recuse himself from a case "involving" Vanguard after saying on his confirmation statement that he would do so.

I finally found a site that had details on that case, and not merely a statement like the one above. It is true that the case in question DID involve Vanguard, but it did not have any stake in Vanguard's finances or the financial prospects of Vanguard investors.

Specifically, the case involved the widow of a Vanguard investor. An ex-business partner of her late husband had filed a 1991 suit against him (the husband) and, because there were appearances that the husband had tried to move assets around to try to hide them from attempts to collect the judgement, his assets had been frozen by the court, and Vanguard (managing company of two IRA accounts frozen by the judgement).

The 2001/2002 case involving Judge Alito was the widow, suing to have the freeze lifted from the accounts by suing Vanguard. The money didn't belong to Vanguard, so regardless of whether the freeze was lifted and the plaintiff claimed the money, or it was left in place and the money had been awarded in the earlier case, Vanguard's financial position would have been the same. As a result, there was zero financial stake to Vanguard, even less to Vanguard investors, and so there really was no conflict of interest. And in fact, Alito was not "the judge" on the case, he was one of a panel of three judges.

Certainly on the surface, I can see where an earlier promise specifically to recuse himself from cases involving Vanguard appears troubling in light of this case, but for the record, I also am a Vanguard investor and I can easily see not considering that relevant. An item to be disclosed, discussed and then dismissed as a minor (at best) violation.

Don't get me wrong, I still believe the Democrats had reason to be nervous during the confirmation hearings, if only because of the fact that the hearings and the "discovery process" regarding Judge (now Justice) Alito were clearly a dog and pony show, in which very little actual information was discovered. On that basis alone, I think the Democrats had a right to say "Whoa, hold the phone. If you won't let us have our input or learn anything about the nominee, we have to assume you're hiding something and oppose him!" Coming off the Roberts hearings and the Miers debacle and a proven record on the part of the White House to refuse access to certain information about the various candidates' records, there was every reason for Democrats to be skeptical.

Add to that the several references to the unitary executive in Judge Alito's (non-)answers to questions at a time when our President seems to use UE theory as justification for ignoring laws he doesn't wish to obey, and there's every reason for the party Grover Norquist said was the one we looked to to protect our civil liberties to be concerned. (In the interest of full disclosure, one of my friends has asserted that there is a less odious and frightening version of unitary executive theory to which some people subscribe. I have not had the opportunity to get more details from him, so I include that information just in case).

Finally, there's still the troubling fact that he used membership in a group with a racist, sexist agenda on a resume when he felt it would benefit him, but conveniently forgets any details on his membership when that might reflect poorly on him for another job. This also is good reason for the party of civil liberties to question his fitness to hold a lifetime position on our highest court.

Nevertheless, I am heartened by the two major points in this post, and hope this portends that Alito will be a more moderate voice than I had previously feared.

Liam.