The Ronald B. Saunders Project
The Ronald B. Saunders Papers
The Saunders Family Archives
Pittsburgh PA
May 10, 2011
This below article by Marty Willis staff writer for the New Pittsburgh Courier titled Caucus Mounts Campaign Aganist Court Nominees appeared in the New Pittsburgh Courier on June15,1986.
Caucus Mounts
Campaign Against
Court Nominees
Warning that the quality of life for all amercians but especially minorities will be severely worsended for decades to come if President Reagan's Supreme Court nominees are confirmed by the Senate, the National Black Political Caucus has mounted a nationwide campaign to opppose their confirmation.
In a letter sent last Friday, June 20, to 12 major national civil rights
organizations, the NBPC announced it will hold a news conference July 15 on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to denounce the right-wing ideological views of Justice William Rehnquist and Judge Antonin Scalia. The caucus invited the organizations to join in the 11 a.m. news conference.
Those contacted include the NAACP, the National Urban League, The National Rainbow Coalition, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Organization for Women, the American Jewish Committee and the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials.
Reagan last week nominated Rehnquist, an associate justice on the court, to replace Warren Burger, who is retiring, as chief justice. He nominated Scalia, a U.S. Appeals Court Judge, for the position of associate justice now held by Rehnquist.
NBPC Board Chariman Ronald B. Saunders and President Reginald Plato described Rehnquist, an appointee of former President Richard Nixon, as a "Reagan loyalist who will put his own self-serving interests and other right-wing ideological views... over sound moderate legal interpretations of law...( He ) vehemently opposes affirmative action plans designed to help minorities and women, and he has been a staunch supporter in limiting criminal defendants rights."
In a letter, the NBPC officials described Scalia in similar terms: " a dyed-in-the-wool Reagan loyalist who is deeply committed to the President ( whose ) narrow First Amendment interpretations in libel cases against print media have set a dangerous .... demoralizing precedent.
Plato said in an interview this week,"We're simply seeking a moderate jurist to replace the moderately conservative Burger. We'er seeking someone who doesn't bring his own peculiar brand of bias and prejudice to the bench.
"But this is extremism," Plato said of Reagan's attempt to restructure the court of last resort.
Saunders acknowledged that the NBPC campaign is a "long shot" because both jurists appear to have a good chance of winning Senate confirmation on the basis of their unquestioned intellect and scholarship.
But he pointed out that two Nixon appointees G. Harold Carswell and Clement F. Haynsworth Jr. were denied confirmation by the Senate in 1969. He urged all Americans to contact their senators to encourage them to do likewise this time.
Scalia Profile
Antonin Scalia, born March 11, 1936, has been on the United States of Appeals in the District of Columbia since being named to it in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan. A graduate of Georgetown University, he has taught at his Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, Stanford University and the University of Virginia. He served as assistant Attorney General from 1974 to 1977 and would be the first Italian-American to serve on the Court.
He is said to have strong views on laws that permit congress to overturn presidential decisions, affirmative action and abortion.
* The editor notes that Justice Scalia has been one of them most activist right-wing extremist ideologues in the history of the United States Supreme Court and I feel honored to have opposed his nomination to the highest court in the land.
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