Alito: Gay Marriage Ruling Could Allow Judges To End Minimum Wage Laws

FILE - In this Sept. 14, 2012 file photo, Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito speaks at Roger Williams University Law School in Bristol, R.I. Massive government surveillance of Americans' phone and internet ... FILE - In this Sept. 14, 2012 file photo, Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito speaks at Roger Williams University Law School in Bristol, R.I. Massive government surveillance of Americans' phone and internet activity is drawing protests from civil liberties groups, but major legal obstacles stand in the way of any full-blown court hearing on the practice. Among them: government claims that national security secrets will be revealed if the cases are allowed to proceed. The Supreme Court, where several justices have written about complex issues of privacy in the digital age, could be the ultimate stop for such lawsuits. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia, File) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

According to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, the court’s recent decision legalizing same-sex marriage laid the legal groundwork for a libertarian justice to eliminate minimum wage laws, or a socialist justice to say that there is a right to an annual income.

In a taped conversation with Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, Alito decried the way he believed the marriage decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, defined the definition of liberty guaranteed by the Constitution’s 14th Amendment to be “the freedom to define your understanding of the meaning of life.”

“There’s no limit,” Alito said, arguing that the Rehnquist court had tried limit such legal definitions of liberty to be “deeply rooted in the traditions of the country.”

“But the Obergefell decision threw that out,” Alito said, as the Daily Beast noted. “It did not claim that there was a strong tradition of protecting the right to same-sex marriage. This would have been impossible to find.”

Without these legal limits on the definition of liberty, Alito speculated that future justices could grant constitutional rights on the basis of their ideological whims, and practically, the nomination of judges will become more like a political election.

“So we are at sea, I think. I don’t know what the limits of substantive liberty protection under the 14th Amendment are at this point,” he said.

Latest Livewire
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: