Alito '72 & Sotomayor '76 attend SOTU; Alito not an Obama fan
If you were watching last night's State of the Union address, you might have observed six of the nine Supreme Court justices in attendance, sitting directly in front of President Obama.
Justices Samuel Alito '72 and Sonia Sotomayor '76 were sitting next to each other, which we thought was cute. Perhaps, we daydreamed, they're good friends who reminisce about their times at Old Nassau. Highly unlikely. What would they talk about? Alito's membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton (the now-defunct conservative group that opposed women and minorities at Princeton)? Awkward! Instead, they were probably forced to sit next to each other, since it appears the justices sat in order of their seniority, starting with Chief Justice John Roberts.Of course, unless you've been living under a rock, Alito made more news than that last night when he shook his head vehemently and appeared to mouth "Not true. Not true." as Obama criticized the recent Citizens United v. FEC decision, which ruled that corporations can use unlimited money to influence political elections. Reactions have been varied: some are calling it an unprecedented breach of decorum (one liberal blog refers to it as Alito's "Joe Wilson" moment), while others say that Obama was out of line by criticizing the Court. You can check out the YouTube clip below to see for yourself.Perhaps the incident shouldn't be such a surprise. Alito and Obama famously don't get along. As Jeffrey Toobin from The New Yorker writes:
What makes Alito’s reaction even more delicious is that it’s further evidence that the Justice just can’t stand Obama. As a Senator, Obama voted against Alito’s confirmation, which the Justice does not seem to have forgotten. When the President-elect Obama made a courtesy call on the Justices shortly before his inauguration last year, Alito was the only member of the Court not to attend. (Obama voted against Roberts, too, but the Chief Justice managed to spare the time to welcome Obama.) The first law that Obama signed as President was the Lilly Ledbetter Act—which reversed a decision by the Supreme Court that had erected new barriers to plaintiffs filing employment discrimination cases. The author of that now-overruled decision? Samuel Alito. These two guys have a history.