Alito's Zeal for Presidential Power

With the Bush administration claiming sweeping and often legally baseless authority to detain and spy on people, judges play a crucial role in underscoring the limits of presidential power. When the Senate begins hearings next month on Judge Samuel Alito, President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, it should explore whether he understands where the Constitution sets those limits. New documents released yesterday provide more evidence that Judge Alito has a skewed view of the allocation of power among the three branches - skewed in favor of presidential power.

One troubling memo concerns domestic wiretaps - a timely topic. In the memo, which he wrote as a lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department, Judge Alito argued that the attorney general should be immune from lawsuits when he illegally wiretaps Americans. Judge Alito argued for taking a step-by-step approach to establishing this principle, much as he argued for an incremental approach to reversing Roe v. Wade in another memo.

The Supreme Court flatly rejected Judge Alito's view of the law. In a 1985 ruling, the court rightly concluded that if the attorney general had the sort of immunity Judge Alito favored, it would be an invitation to deny people their constitutional rights.

In a second memo released yesterday, Judge Alito made another bald proposal for grabbing power for the president. He said that when the president signed bills into law, he should make a "signing statement" about what the law means. By doing so, Judge Alito hoped the president could shift courts' focus away from "legislative intent" - a well-established part of interpreting the meaning of a statute - toward what he called "the President's intent."



http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/opinion/24sat1.html

Willing to give Republican presidents 1000% of what they want. Heck with Meirs who was a real person.