A Liberal Senator and Conservative Judge Meet
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15-Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, met with Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Tuesday, the day after Judge Alito’s 1985 job application letter was made public. In that letter, Alito said “the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.”
Sen. Kennedy is a member of the. Judiciary Committee, which must vote on judicial nominees before they come before the entire Senate for approval. The committee’s confirmation hearings are set to begin on January 9.
After the meeting, Sen. Kennedy said that while federal appeals court Judge Alito was intelligent and capable, “the real criterion for a Supreme Court nominee is a core commitment to constitutional values,” which he said included the right to privacy, and therefore the right to an abortion.
The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which established the precedent for legal abortion, stated that the right to privacy included the right to have an abortion.
Judge Alito’s judicial record on the subject is mixed.
Sen. Kennedy’s list of “core values” also includes, he said, the right of the accused to a fair trial and “the authority of Congress to deal with challenges” ranging from age discrimination to affirmative action to the Family and Medical and Leave Act, which allows family members to take unpaid leave to care for a sick child. The Supreme Court upheld the act by a 6-3 vote in 2003.
In his 1985 letter to then-Attorney General Edwin I. Meese, Judge Alito said he believed in “the legitimacy of a government role in protecting traditional values.”
He also criticized reapportionment decisions written under former Chief Justice Earl Warren, which found that the federal judiciary had a role to play in assuring that voting districts should be roughly equal in population. Alito sided with the opposition, which held that districting was a political matter, not properly to be decided by the courts.
Sen. Kennedy said that this precedent, set by Baker vs. Carr in 1962, and other decisions of the Warren court constituted “enormous progress advancing liberty, [and made America] a more fair nation.”
He was reluctant to say whether his view of Judge Alito had been affected by their meeting. The senator said the judge indicated that his views on constitutional protections for abortion and on other issues had “matured” somewhat.
Of the judge’s statement that the letter to Mr. Meese was part of a job application to join a conservative administration, Sen. Kennedy said, “Why shouldn’t we consider that the answers given today are an application for another job?” He said Judge Alito’s views on these issues would be examined during the confirmation hearings.
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