Article: An Open Letter To the U.S. Senate, Regarding The Nomination of Samuel Alito To The Supreme Court

Dear Senators:
Today you begin the highly-important task of deciding whether our next Justice of the Supreme Court will be Samuel Alito or someone else. We the People of the United States are watching with great interest as you go about this job, which only you are authorized to do.

Earlier, we watched as you gave your Constitutional Consent, without fully understanding his views, to the nomination of John Roberts as Chief Justice. He dazzled you with his obvious legal brilliance, and then he gave some lame excuses for not telling you everything you needed to know. And you lamely accepted them, blinded as you were by his legal brilliance. Now he is on the Court, for better or for worse, probably for life. And now now we will find out, after it is too late, what his real views are.

And we watched with amazement as President Bush nominated, and then withdrew, the very nice but obviously-unqualified Harriet Myers. Now we, the American People, are watching very carefully to see what you do with the Samuel Alito nomination. And we cannot stand silently by while you approve this, or any other nominee, who would likely harm the Supreme Court and the Country. You are our elected representatives in this matter, and you are ultimately responsible to us, the People. If you fail to perform your job properly, we can remove you, by election. We are the Sovereign, you are our agents. Many qualified people would like to be United States Senators, and each of you can easily be replaced. If you resigned today, you could be replaced tomorrow.

Three serious flaws have now become apparent in the existing method of nominating and approving Supreme Court candidates, and these flaws need to be identified and corrected immediately, before they do any more harm. Only after they are corrected can you properly do your job of judging the merits of the Samuel Alito nomination.

The first and most obvious flaw in the process is that President Bush has sought no meaningful advice from the Senate before presenting his nominations. Perhaps he has consulted with a selected few individual Senators, but his bizarre nomination of Harriet Myers proves that only a very few, if any, were consulted in her case; and his nomination of the highly-divisive Samuel Alito proves that he heeded only the advice offered by the most extreme elements of his Party, in his case. In the future, the Senate should refuse even to consider any nomination for which its advice was not sought and heeded by the President. You have the Constitutional Right to reject any candidates you find unsatisfactory, for whatever reasons you choose. The President has now sent you two unsatisfactory nominees in a row. This flaw needs to be corrected. And because the President failed to seek your advice in the Alito nomination, you are not obligated in any way to presume that this nomination is worthy of your support.

The second obvious flaw is that you have accepted the false assertion that Supreme Court nominees are somehow prevented from giving you straight answers about what they believe the law to be. It is meaningless for them to say, "I will follow the Law," or "Nobody is above the Law," without letting you know what they believe the Law to be. For instance, Judge Alito may very well believe that the anti-torture provisions you recently enacted are unconstitutional, interfering, as they do, with the magical Unitary Executive authority which he erroneously believes is possessed by the President. If he believes this, then when these cases come before him, he will rule that the President does not have to follow an unconstitutional law. You need to know this before, not after, Judge Alito becomes a member of the Court. The plain fact is that there is no legal, moral, or ethical reason why these nominees cannot tell you whatever you need to know, even if these exact cases might be coming before the Court. They are prohibited only from giving you a commitment. They are never prohibited from giving you their understanding of the applicable laws. I have previously explained all of this in my article located at

http://www.loveallpeople.org/itisnottrue.html

The third obvious flaw is that you seem to have accepted the idea that a "Nuclear Option" could be used to break a filibuster, by simply having the Chair falsely declare that further debate is out of order. Then, according to this false idea, the decision of the Chair could be sustained by a simple majority. And thus a Standing Rule of the Senate, which requires a two-thirds vote to amend, could be subverted by a false ruling sustained by a simple majority. The very concept is absurd on its face, as I have explained in my article located at

http://www.loveallpeople.org/nuclearoptionisabluff.html

And any nomination confirmed by such a tainted process would surely be rejected by the Court, if challenged.

Today you begin a full and open debate on the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court of the United States, in violation of a direct order from President Bush, who had instructed you to give him a "prompt up-or-down vote," by which he meant a Rubber-Stamp approval of Judge Alito, without question or debate. Please see

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/01/20060114.html )

If it had been possible to get the sixty votes needed to bypass debate and go straight to a vote, I'm sure he would have instructed you to do that, in order to avoid any annoying questions about his choice of Alito. But sadly for him, the votes were not there, and now you are heading into what he had hoped to avoid: a full and open debate on the suitability of Samuel Alito for this vitally-important lifetime job.

But wait a minute! Why does he feel he can order you to do anything? How can he presume to instruct you in any matter whatsoever? Why should you take orders from him? He is the President - the Administrator, not the King, because we have no King, thank God. You are the Senate - maker of laws, along with the House Of Representatives. He is obligated to follow and enforce whatever laws you may enact, whether he agrees with them or not. He cannot obligate you to do anything. You can remove him from office; he cannot remove you. He should be kissing your ring, not you kissing his. If you doubt these facts, please re-read the Constitution, a copy of which is located here:

http://www.patriot.net/users/bmcgin/usconstitutiona.txt

The mere fact that he felt entitled to issue this command to you should have alerted you to the fact that our President is dangerously deluded about his Constitutional role in our Government.

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