The November 8 Philadelphia Inquirer described Senator Arlen Specter (R- Pa.) as being "in the hot seat" on whether to confirm Judge Alito for the Supreme Court.

It reported that he is worried that if he votes against Alito, conservative Republicans may deprive him of his chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and with it his influence on policy issues that he cares about: notably, asbestos litigation and immigration.

But the Constitution is a far weightier matter than those issues. And Alito will be helping define it for at least a generation.

So it is important to realize that Judge Alito's radicalism goes far beyond his disdain for a woman's right to choose whether to have an abortion.

He has tried to overturn pro-worker, pro-environment, and pro-minority legislation passed by the U.S. Congress by using a very narrow and archaic reading of the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution.

His reading harks back to the anti-New Deal decisions of the Supreme Court in the early 1930s. Those rulings have long ago been reversed; yet Judge Alito seeks to resurrect that logic. If that logic were followed, it could invalidate such New Deal laws as Social Security.

For millennia, religious values and practice have affirmed the importance of communal action to protect the poor, to support elders, to make sure that workers are not demeaned or enslaved, to treat the earth as holy. Judge Alito has denigrated and denied those values. And he has shown contempt for
the ability of Congress to hear various views and come to its own conclusions about the facts and the needs.

So far, the higher courts have rejected Alito's reasoning. But two Supreme Court Justices have agreed with him. With a Chief Justice already in place who is to the right of his predecessor and with Alito on the Court, his ultra-right-wing logic could prevail. So it is crucial to oppose him.

Alito said that Congress does not have the power under the Commerce Clause to restrict the transfer and possession of machine guns at gun shows. He said that Congress must make findings or provide empirical evidence of a link between a regulation and its effect on interstate commerce. But the majority said, "Nothing requires either Congress or the Executive to play Show and Tell with the federal courts at the peril of invalidation of a Congressional statute."

Alito joined in a 2-1 ruling gutting citizens' access to courts under the Clean Water Act. Although the Act authorizes "any citizen" to bring a "civil enforcement action" against alleged polluters, the Third Circuit ruling declared that PIRG did not have standing to sue because it had not demonstrated a specific case of pollution resulted in serious harm to the
environment (reversing a rare $2.6 million fine handed down by the trial court for the company's violations of the Act). The majority concluded that the Constitution denied Congress the authority to pass a law allowing citizens access to courts in these circumstances. Three years later, the Supreme Court essentially reversed and rejected Judge Alito's analysis in a
7-2 decision.

Alito held that Congress did not have authority to require state
employers to comply with the Family and Medical Leave Act. This ruling was repudiated by the Supreme Court in a later case in which Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote the Court's decision.

Alito would have upheld the strip search of a mother and her ten-year old daughter, even though the warrant authorizing a search did not name either of them. Judge Michael Chertoff, now head of the Department of Homeland Security, criticized that position as threatening to turn the constitution's
search warrant requirement into little more than a "rubber stamp."

Alito, according to the majority of his fellow-judges, would have "eviscerated" legal protections against racial discrimination in hiring. His position would protect employers from suit even in situations where the employer's belief that it had selected the "best" candidate "was the result of conscious racial bias."

Alito would have made it more difficult for a woman alleging gender discrimination in employment to get her case to a jury.

Alito rejected claims by an African American defendant who had been convicted by an all-white jury from which black jurors had been impermissibly struck because of their race. The full Third Circuit reversed this ruling, and the majority specifically criticized Alito for having compared statistical evidence about the prosecution's exclusion of
blacks from juries in capital cases to an explanation of why a
disproportionate number of recent U.S. Presidents have been left-handed. According to the majority, "[t]o suggest any comparability to the striking of jurors based on their race is to minimize the history of discrimination against prospective black jurors and black defendants ..."

All this should be enough. A year ago, Senator Specter met with a group of rabbis and promised us that he would not vote to confirm an "extremist" nominee for the Court. Alito's extremism threatens to subjugate Congress and put
two generations of decent public legislation in jeopardy.

Senator Specter should rise above his own personal pride of office and his personal stake in specific policies, and take on the most important role of his life: defender of the poor, the handicapped, minorities, women, the earth itself, Congress, and the Constitution. By voting No on Alito.

And the people of Pennsylvania and of the United States can help remind him of his duty by calling 202/224-3121, asking for Senator Specter's office, and registering their opinion.

It is bad enough that the spectre of Judge Alito should be haunting the Constitution. Senator Specter should lay that ghost.