Campaign for the Supreme Court: Prepared Remarks of Senator John CornynSENATOR JOHN CORNYNJudge Alito, I am very pleased to welcome you to the Committee. | Judge
Samuel Alito
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We have already heard
a great deal today about your impeccable credentials for the Supreme Court. You
have served with distinction as a Court of Appeals Judge. You have served as a
United States Attorney. Indeed, you have devoted your entire career to public
service.We have also heard a bit today — and we will hear a great
deal more as the hearings unfold — about the glowing testimonials from the people
you have worked with, the people who know you best, whether liberal, moderate,
or conservative. The judges on your court have praised you as a thoughtful and
open-minded jurist, and we will hear more from them later this week. The
same is true of the dozens of law clerks you have worked with during your 15 years
on the bench. Law clerks, of course, are the close confidants judges rely on to
advise them on the cases they hear. You have hired law clerks from every political
persuasion: Green Party, Democrat Party, even a clerk that went on to serve as
a counsel to Senator John Kerry’s campaign for President. And every single one
of these clerks says that you will make a terrific Supreme Court Justice, that
you apply the law in a fair and even-handed manner, and that you bring no agenda
to your work as a judge. If qualifications, integrity, fairness,
and open-mindedness were all that mattered in this process, you would be confirmed
unanimously. But we know that is not how this process works.
We know that 22 Senators — including 5 on this Committee — voted against Chief
Justice Roberts just a few months ago. We therefore know that you do not exactly
come here today on a level playing field. I am reluctantly inclined to the view
that you and any other nominee of this President for the Supreme Court start with
no more than 13 votes in this Committee, and only 78 votes in the full Senate,
with a solid, immovable, and unpersuadable block of at least 22 votes against
you, no matter what you say, no matter what you do. That is unfortunate for you,
but even worse for the Senate and its reputation as the world’s greatest deliberative
body. The question is why — with so many people from both sides
of the aisle and across the ideological spectrum supporting your nomination —
are liberal special interest groups and their allies devoting so much time and
money to defeat your nomination? The answer, I’m afraid, is that there are a number
of groups that do not want honest and fair-minded judges on the Supreme Court.
Rather, they want judges who will impose their liberal agenda on the American
people.
I will give you one example of an area where I believe
our Supreme Court has been rewriting the Constitution for a very long time. It
is an area that is very dear to me and to many others in this country. I am speaking
of the ability of people of faith to express themselves in public.
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These views are so liberal, of course that they cannot prevail at the
ballot box. So they want judges who will find traditional marriage limited to
one man and one woman unconstitutional. They want judges who will ban any trace
of religious expression from the public square. They even want judges who will
prohibit schoolchildren from saying the Pledge of Allegiance. As I say, none of
these are mainstream positions embraced by the American people, so the strategy
of liberal special interest groups is to try to impose their agenda through unelected
judges. Judge Alito, these groups are trying to defeat your nomination
because you will not support their liberal agenda. And the reason they oppose
you is precisely why I support you. I want judges on the Supreme Court who will
not use their position to impose a political agenda on the American people. I
want judges on the Supreme Court who will respect the words and meaning of the
Constitution, the laws enacted by Congress, and the laws enacted by state legislatures.
This does not mean that judges should always reach a conservative
result. It means they should reach whatever result the people have directed in
their Constitution and in their laws. Sometimes it will be conservative, sometimes
liberal. But the point is that the meanings of the Constitution and other laws
should not change unless the people change them. A Supreme Court appointment is
not a roving commission to rewrite our laws however you and your colleagues see
fit. I will give you one example of an area where I believe our Supreme
Court has been rewriting the Constitution for a very long time. It is an area
that is very dear to me and to many others in this country. I am speaking of the
ability of people of faith to express themselves in public. There
is no doubt where our Founding Fathers stood on this question. They believed that
people of faith should be permitted to express themselves in public. They believed
that this country was big enough and free enough to allow expression of an enormous
variety of views and beliefs. Specifically, to my point, they believed that freedom
of expression included religious views and beliefs, so long as the government
did not force people to worship and remained neutral on which views and beliefs
it agreed or disagreed with. But this country got seriously off track
with the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren. The Supreme Court now
has gone so far as to limit the right of even private citizens to freely express
their religious beliefs in public.
No wonder many in America believe that the Supreme Court seems
more inclined to protect pornography than to protect religious expression. Most
people in America do not believe that God is a dirty word. But the sad fact is
the Supreme Court might have greater regard for it if it were.
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When I was the Attorney General of Texas, I argued a case in the Supreme
Court called Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe. The school district
had the temerity to permit student-led, student-initiated prayer at football games,
and, of course, someone sued. I repeat, this was student-led, student-initiated,
voluntary prayer. The Supreme Court held by a vote of 6-3 that even this was unconstitutional.
The decision led the late Chief Justice Rehnquist to remark that the Court now
exhibits "hostility to all things religious in public life." It is hard
to disagree with him. Depictions and expression of views on sex, violence, crime,
are all permitted virtually without limit – but religion, no!This is
where you come in, Judge Alito. There is a great deal to like about your record
on the Third Circuit, but one of the things I appreciate about is your record
in religious freedom cases. In short, you get it. It is clear from your record
that you understand that our Founding Fathers intended neutrality — not hostility
— towards religion. It is my sincere hope, Judge Alito, that you
will be confirmed to the Supreme Court and that you will persuade your colleagues
to reconsider their attitude towards religious expression and grant it the same
freedom currently reserved for almost all other, non-religious speech. No wonder
many in America believe that the Supreme Court seems more inclined to protect
pornography than to protect religious expression. Most people in America do not
believe that God is a dirty word. But the sad fact is the Supreme Court might
have greater regard for it if it were. Again, welcome to the Committee.
And thank you for your continued willingness to serve our great nation. 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Senator John Cornyn. "Campaign for the Supreme
Court." prepared text of the statement delivered by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.).
(January 9, 2006). THE AUTHOR Senator
John Cornyn, of San Antonio, is a Republican Senator for the state of Texas. He
was sworn in to the U.S. Senate on December 2, 2002, succeeding Phil Gramm.
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