A Vote Against Alito Is a Vote for Progress

Ted Kennedy explains what the media should have, but would not. Why wouldn't they? Because it was not bleeding, sexy or entertaining--and worst of all--education of the electorate is not in their corporate owner's best interests.

A Vote Against Alito Is a Vote for Progress: "Judge Alito’s consistent advocacy of what he called “the gospel” of the “unitary executive” is just as troubling. Professor Steven Calabresi, one of the originators of the unitary executive theory and a co-founder of the Federalist Society, has acknowledged that, if the concept is implemented, it would produce a radical change in how the government operates. As he wrote in the Harvard Law Review in 1992, “The practical consequence of this theory is dramatic: it renders unconstitutional independent agencies and counsels to the extent that they exercise discretionary executive power.”

Independent agencies such as the Federal Election Commission, created to see that our voting laws are properly enforced and interpreted, would be subject to the President’s control. The same is true of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is charged with preventing corporate abuses such as we recently saw in the case of Enron, with tragic consequences for American workers. It would compromise the historic independence of the Federal Reserve Board, giving the President unprecedented and dangerous power to manipulate the economy. It would compromise the mission of every agency created to protect hard-working Americans from the exploitation of those who care only about profits, not the health and welfare and the very safety of their employees."