Hightower Lowdown

When he was nominated by Bush last year to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, practically the entire debate over this right-wing judge revolved around his stance on abortion. So Alito and his backers worked hard to soften his record as a knee-jerk, anti-choice zealot. They convinced enough Senate Democrats and moderate Republicans that Alito was confirmed.

A few of us populists, however, tried to point out that the Supreme Court spends far more time on issues involving worker rights, pollution, and consumers than on abortion. We warned that throughout his career, Alito had sided consistently on these issues with corporate and governmental elites over ordinary citizens and would do the same on the high court.

Sure enough, Alito jumped on his first opportunity to side with bosses over the First Amendment rights of workers. In a May 30 decision involving a whistleblower, a bare 5-4 majority of the court ruled that public employees have no free-speech right to blow the whistle against wrongdoing by their superiors -- and they have no constitutional protection against retaliation by their bosses.

The deciding vote came from Alito. Had Sandra Day O'Connor still been on the bench, it's likely that the court would have ruled the other way -- for the rights of whistleblowers.

Unfortunately, we're now stuck with this guy for life! The lesson here, especially for Democrats, is that future nominees to all of our courts need not only to be vetted on social issues, but also to be grilled equally hard on whose interests they'll serve on the economic, environmental, and civil liberties cases that come before them. To learn more about this particular case, call the National Whistleblower Center: 202-342-1902.