Senate Begins Debate on Alito for High Court

WASHINGTON – The full senate begins to debate the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court bench today with reports indicating that there is already enough support to approve him.

Over 50 Republicans out of the 100-member Senate have indicated they will vote for Judge Alito, who – barring last minute changes – is expected to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and be confirmed as the nation’s 110th Supreme Court Justice as soon as the end of this week.

Social conservative supporters of the nominee believe that Alito is a well-qualified judge who will move the high court’s decision-making in their direction on many of the controversial issues confronting the nation.

As of late Tuesday, the Associated Press had confirmed through phone calls with the senators’ representatives that at least the simple majority vote needed to confirm had been assured.

The nominee is not a consensus choice, however. After the Senate Judiciary Committee of 18 senators voted on whether to allow Alito to receive a full senate vote yesterday, Republicans and Democrats were far apart in their views of the nominee. All ten Republicans voted for Alito, while eight Democrats opposed his nomination, indicating a sharp conservative and liberal split.

Democrat opponents to Alito believe that he will endanger civil liberties and give excessive leeway to the president, negatively impacting the checks and balances of power provided for in the U.S. Constitution. Throughout the hearings, opposing senators referred to recent allegations of possibly illegal phone surveillance by the Executive branch, viewing the matter as an excessive use of power that should be curtailed by the judiciary if such a case came before the Court.

The American Civil Liberties Union touched upon that issue yesterday after the vote, expressing disappointment that the committee had approved Alito. The liberal-leaning organization views Alito as unfaithful to the U.S. Constitution and says the nominee has shown “an alarming and undue deference to executive powers.”

“His legal and judicial philosophy shows a jurist who is all too willing to acquiesce to the harmful, and possibly illegal, demands of an executive branch set on extending its reach and power,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.

In his testimony, Alito addressed the presidential power issue by stating that no president or citizen is above the law and that all are expected to follow it. However he indicated that based on court precedent, there are may be situations where the president opposes a law but the action may not necessarily be illegal. However he indicated that the courts have classified the president’s power as being at its “lowest ebb” in such cases. Alito said it would not be proper to speculate further unless he had a chance to review all the facts of a specific case and go through the judicial process to make a decision.

Recently, President Bush has stated that all actions currently being undertaken are constitutional. The matter will be addressed by Congress.

Even before the Senate hearings, some of the most vocal opponents of Alito were organizations such as the National Organization for Women (NOW) and NARAL, which support abortion and believe Alito will vote to overturn the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized the practice in 1973.

In Alito’s early legal career as an attorney in the Reagan administration, he indicated that he did not believe the U.S. Constitution provided for abortion rights. During the recent confirmation hearings before the senate judiciary committee, Alito said that his position as an advocate then was different than his current one as a judge for the past 15 years on a federal appellate court.

During the hearings this month, Alito said he would keep an “open mind” about abortion if the issue arose for his consideration, adding that he would respect legal precedent when making his decisions. However he would not categorize the Roe decision as “settled law,” leaving the door open to voting against it. He said that the issue was still contentious with much litigation taking place.

Conservatives have noted that 15 years of bench experience and over 300 written opinions on a variety of cases make Alito one of the best qualified judges ever nominated to the nation’s highest court. They say his refusal to commit to any position before the facts are heard is evidence of his fairness and lack of an agenda as a judge, a trait highly to be highly valued.

Ahead of today’s debate the president of a prominent conservative legal group echoed that view.

“Anyone who votes against confirming Judge Alito must do so from an ill-founded belief that Supreme Court Justices should be social scientists, rather than judges,” said Mathew Staver, President of Liberty Counsel.

He expressed the view that Alito knew well the intentions of the nation’s founders who provided for a government with checks and balances that “places the power with the people.”

“The majority of Americans have had enough of activist judges untethered to the Constitution and divorced from the rule of law,” Staver added, encouraging the senate to “move quickly to confirm Judge Alito to the High Court.”