Treading on Armand's turf of law and courts, and likely inviting disaster in the form of a Moon corrective, I submit this post by Nathan Newman which I have seen referenced at a few sites.
But what is most striking about Alito's statement is this line:
In college, I developed a deep interest in constitutional law, motivated in large part by disagreement with Warren Court decisions, particularly in the areas of criminal procedure, the Establishment Clause, and reapportionment.
"Reapportionment"?
For the non-lawyers out there, Alito meant he was against the Supreme Court decisions requiring that all state legislative districts be designed to guarantee "one person, one vote", instead of giving some districts with very few voters the same representation as urban districts with far more voters.
I'm curious. Has anyone else tackled this aspect of Alito's statement? Are there alternate interpretations? Moon?
Posted by binky at November 16, 2005 09:18 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Law and the CourtsWell, I suppose whether or not we should be worried depends on what he found to disagree with in those 1960's deicisions. They were "activist" decisions - was that the problem? Did he foresee the absurd suits that have been brought when congressional districts differ by, say, 25 people? Was he ok with these decisions in federal, but not state (or vice versa) arenas? Did he think it was permissible to bring in other calculations into how districts were drawn (other than "1 man, 1 vote")?
This is certainly an area worth examining his views on, particularly given the current Court having to deal with gerrymandering, but this comment is awfully vague.
Posted by: Armand at November 18, 2005 08:48 AM | PERMALINK