January 28, 2010 5:54 PM
Was Justice Alito’s SOTU Reaction Justified?
Posted by Brian Baxter
Next to the death of J.D. Salinger, all anyone wants totalk about today is President Obama’s reprimand of the Supreme Court during Wednesday night’s State of the Union address–and Justice Samuel Alito’s reaction.
As one can see in the YouTube video posted below, Alito shook his head and appeared to mouth the words “not true” after Obamarebuked the high court for reversing what he called a “century of law” and opening”the floodgates” to corporate spending in political campaigns withits decision last week in the Citizens United case. (The case was a big win for Theodore Olson, the appellate maestro at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.)
According to our own Supreme Court correspondent TonyMauro, it remains to be seen whether or not Alito was objecting to Obama’s”floodgates” imagery. instead, Mauro says its likely Alito wasperturbed by Obama’s reference to foreign corporations being among thosewilling to start throwing money around in U.S. elections.
The 5-4 majority opinion in the Citizens United caseexplicitly declined to rule on the involvement of foreign corporations, Maurowrites. CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who penned a criticallyacclaimed book on the Supreme Court two years ago, felt that Alito’s reactionwas fair. (Toobin notes that Alito was the only justice absent when Obama paida visit to the court shortly before his inauguration last year.)
The Blog of Legal Times, an Am Law Daily sibling blog, reports thatObama’s State of the Union speech also touched on a number of other topics withpossible ramifications for lawyers and lobbyists. the president promised acrackdown on pay discrimination, specifically citing new enforcement efforts bythe Justice Department’s civil rights division.
Obama also pushed for more lobbying restrictions, a proposal immediately met with resounding skepticism by, you guessed it, lobbyists.
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