Why US big business is pleased with Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court

The White House also calculates that Alito’s low-key demeanor will provide the administration’s nominal opponents in the Democratic Party with political cover for acceding to this extreme right-wing nomination during the confirmation process.

Already, key members of the “gang of 14”—a group of “moderate” Republican and Democratic senators—are signaling that Alito will be confirmed without a Democratic filibuster. After the Republican faction indicated that Alioto was acceptable, Ken Salazar, a Colorado Democrat, announced that the gang of 14 was “not going to blow up” over the nominee, and Ben Nelson, Democrat from Nebraska, said, after speaking with Alito, “I am more comfortable than I was before.”

Much of the media attention in coming weeks will focus on Alito’s dissenting opinion as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1991), in which he argued that a state law requiring married women to notify their husbands before obtaining an abortion did not impose an “undue burden.” Less attention will likely be given to his unflagging support for expanding police powers and limiting prisoner rights, which strongly suggests that Alito will approve the Bush administration’s police-state measures, such as the indefinite jailing of “unlawful combatants” and the use of torture.

Of key concern to big business is Alito’s record on rolling back governmental powers to regulate business and commerce. During his 15 years on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Alito has heard appeals of federal court rulings in the populous industrialized states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, as well as in Delaware, where many of the nation’s largest corporations have their headquarters. Alito has ruled consistently in favor of big business and against the interests of workers and consumers. The Wall Street Journal gushed in a November 1 editorial about Alito’s “regard for free markets and ... recognition of the legal and regulatory challenges facing business.”

The most dramatic example of Alito’s determination to deprive the federal government of power to regulate business is his dissenting opinion in United States v. Rybar (1996), where he argued that Congress could not enact a law prohibiting the possession of machineguns. He maintained that such a measure was beyond the constitutionally mandated power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce.

The two-judge majority decision pointed out that Alito’s views were contrary to the decisions of every circuit court of appeals which had considered the question, as well as 50 years of Supreme Court precedent upholding federal regulation of firearms.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/nov2005/alit-n09.shtml