Alito Hearings

I'm disappointed, though not surprised, in the dates set for the Alito hearings. I'm aware that the holidays are coming up, which complicate scheduling, but Ginsburg was confirmed in fifty days in 1993, and a similar scheduling could get Alito confirmed by mid-December. People point to Alito's fifteen years' worth of opinions as a reason for delay, but Ginsburg had been on the bench for thirteen years. Moreover, Alito was not some unexpected nominee; various groups have already been researching his record on the bench.

Most importantly, however, is that the announced schedule means that he will miss oral arguments for the January session. It doesn't make sense to have O'Connor sit through those, because the Court will not hand down opinions on them for some time following the arguments. Should the Court's members give one of those cases a preliminary 5-4 vote, with O'Connor in the majority, they would likely need to re-hear the case after Alito joined the Court.

The cases at issue are:

• Bank of China, N.Y. Branch v. NBM L.L.C.
• Hudson v. Michigan
• Hartman v. Moore
• Wisconsin Right to Life v. Federal Election Commission
• Texaco, Inc. v. Dagher and Shell Oil Co. v. Dagher (the two cases are being combined into one oral argument session, due to them being essentially the same case (you'll notice that each is a big oil company v. Dagher))
• Jones v. Flowers
• Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp.
• House v. Bell
• United States v. Grubbs
• Merrill Lynch v. Dabit

Currently, I don't know much about the particulars of any of these cases; some I have a vague idea about and some I have no clue. I intend to check further into the matter.

However, I think the goal in delaying the hearings may be more in allowing time for the Court to hand down more opinions in which O'Connor takes part before Alito replaces her. A justice must be a member of the Court at the time the opinion is issued for their vote to count, regardless of whether they were a member for oral arguments or the period during which opinions for the case were drafted. Alito is believed to be more "conservative" while O'Connor is considered a "moderate" on the Court (there are problems with those descriptions, which I'll address another time if I haven't already). Thus Alito is predicted to somewhat change the direction of the Court. Kennedy will become the "swing" justice (despite all this talk about O'Connor being the swing justice, that position belonged more to Kennedy during the last term (though that was partially due to the coincidences of which cases were brought before the Court during that particular term)). As such, Democrats (primarily) wish for O'Connor to remain as long as possible.