Judge Alito Ignores Meeting Request from Congressional Black Caucus

"As Democrats and Republicans spar over a potential filibuster by Democrats to block Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court, members of the Congressional Black Caucus say Alito snubbed their recent request for a meeting," reports the Black America Web.

" 'We never heard back from anyone in Alito’s office,' Myra Dandridge, a spokeswoman for the Congressional Black Caucus, told BlackAmericaWeb.com Monday.... Dandridge said the caucus, which has been critical of Alito’s judicial opinions involving race, asked for a meeting with Alito last month but never got a response."

And Bloomberg.com reported last week: "The Congressional Black Caucus announced it opposes U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. and sought a meeting with 14 senators who pledged to oppose filibusters of judicial candidates except under 'extraordinary circumstances.''

The 42 black members of the House of Representatives said Alito exhibited hostility to race-discrimination cases during his 15 years as a federal appeals court judge and his prior service as a Justice Department lawyer. The group's vote was unanimous. Leaders of the caucus said Alito, insisted in discrimination cases on a higher standard of proof than is required by case law and legal precedent.

'We believe his hostility to discrimination cases has been systematic and unmovable'' and his Senate confirmation to be a justice would be 'nothing short of a dangerous turning point for the Supreme Court,'' Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's non-voting delegate, told reporters in Washington. "

And hardly by coincidence, the Washington Post reported that African-American leaders met privately with the President last week.

Reported WaPo: "Wednesday's meeting brought together senior White House staff with nine black leaders, including: National Urban League President and Chief Executive Marc Morial; Donna Brazile, a Democratic political consultant; Rep. Melvin Watt, a North Carolina Democrat and head of the Congressional Black Caucus; and Dorothy Height, president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women. . . ."

Yes, the very same George W. Bush who is the first US president to not speak to the annual NAACP since Herbert Hoover in the 1930s ....and he's dissed it each of his five years in office. And yes, the same George W. Bush who was accused of gross racism in his administration's slow emergency response after Hurricane Katrina, which resulted in over 1,400 deaths, mostly of African-Americans.

Now, after five years in office, Mr. Bush suddenly and finally has time to meet with a handful of carefully-selected leaders of the African-American community?

Hmmmm.....the political tea leaves seem to be prophesying that the Alito nomination to the Supreme Court is in jeopardy. Senate hearings begin on January 6, 2006.
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-- Website of the Congressional Black Caucus of the 109th Congress
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