Alito and Religious Establishment
Most recent analyses of Supreme Court nominee Alito's church-state jurisprudence engage his seemingly strong support of religious exercise. Catching up on my weekend reading, I see that UCLA law professor (and conservative blogger!) Eugene Volokh looks also at the other side, Alito's likely attitude toward establishment clause claims:
It seems likely that a Justice Alito would give the conservatives a majority on issues involving funding and display. His lower court opinions fairly apply the rather vague Supreme Court precedents, reaching results that the court's conservatives would have reached, but that swing-voter Justice O'Connor would also likely have come to--for instance upholding a holiday display that included both religious and secular symbols.He also seems to conclude that equal treatment of religious institutions is not establishment, for instance holding that religious groups may have the same access as secular groups to public school bulletin boards. And he seems to lean toward viewing religious speech by the government--part of a longstanding American tradition--as constitutionally permissible, too.
What do we see here in Judge Alito? Not an O'Connor, Scalia or Rehnquist; rather, a judge with his own mix of conservatism, libertarianism and egalitarianism, a cautious jurist who seems likely to move the court toward a slightly more claimant-friendly view of free speech and religious freedom--and a slightly more government-friendly view of the Establishment Clause.