* Warning - story contributed to by Associated Pravda
Bush Nominates Alito for Supreme Court
Monday, October 31, 2005
WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday nominated Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.
While many Republicans praised the judicial nominee, Democrats wasted no time in publicly blasting him as "too radical."
"Judge Alito is one of the most accomplished and respected judges of America and his long career in public service has given him an extraordinary breadth of judicial experience," Bush said in making the announcement. "He's scholarly, fair-minded and principled and these qualities will serve him well on the highest court in the land."
The White House arranged for Alito to go to the Capitol, where Senate Majority Leader Bill First to greet him and accompany the nominee to the Capitol Rotunda to go to the coffin of the late civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.
If approved, Alito — considered a conservative federal judge — will replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a moderate who has been considered a decisive swing vote in a host of affirmative action, abortion, campaign finance, discrimination and death penalty cases.
"I am deeply honored to be nominated to serve on the Supreme Court and I am very grateful for the confidence you have shown in me," Alito said after Bush announced his pick. "The Supreme Court has been an institution that I have long held in reverence."
A senior GOP leadership aide said leading lawmakers are pushing for hearings and a final vote on the Senate floor by the Christmas holiday.
Some at the White House believe there will be 22 votes against Alito. The reason being, they said, if some lawmakers didn't like Judge John Roberts, they won't like Alito.
Roberts may be closest to Alito in that "both are conservatives but both are very careful not to give their opinion" on social issues, John Nagle, associate dean at Notre Dame Law School who knows Alito, told FOX News on Monday.
Calling Alito a "terrific nominee," Nagle said the nominee has a "distinguished record" while working on constitutional issues in the Justice Department and during the rest of his professional career.
Alito is "very gracious, easy going, personable. He's really a legal thinker but he's not a person who in his personal conversations … tries to prove how bright he is," Nagle said. "He's conservative but you don't get the sense from his opinions that he's pursuing a particular agenda ... his decisions are very measured, analytical."
Alito has been dubbed "Scalito" or "Scalia-lite" by some lawyers because his judicial philosophy invites comparisons to conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. But while Scalia is outspoken and is known to badger lawyers, Alito is polite, reserved and even-tempered. Some at the White House have taken offense to the nickname.
FOX News Supreme Court analyst Tim O'Brien said while some of Alito's ideology may be similar to that of Scalia's, he is an independent thinker and he should not be labeled as another Scalia.
But "he is a friendly, easy-going guy and that certainly will help him in this confirmation here," O'Brien said.
The White House hopes the choice mends a rift in the Republican Party caused by the failed nomination of Harriet Miers. Miers bowed out last Thursday after three weeks of bruising criticism from members of Bush's own party who argued that the Texas lawyer and loyal Bush confidant had thin credentials on constitutional law and no proven record as a judicial conservative.
Bush administration officials said Alito was virtually certain from the start to get the nod from the moment Miers backed out. The 55-year-old jurist was Bush's favorite choice of the judges in the last set of deliberations but he settled instead on someone outside what he calls the "judicial monastery," the officials said, which resulted in the pick of Miers.
Bush believes that Alito has not only the right experience and conservative ideology for the job, but also has a temperament suited to building consensus on the court. A former prosecutor, Alito has experience off the bench that factored into Bush's thinking, the officials said.
Political Fight Expected
While Alito is expected to win praise from Bush's allies on the right, Democrats have served notice they will fight it.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said Monday that he is "disappointed" in the pick of Alito in that he is not a "consensus nominee" and said one day earlier that that nominee would "create a lot of problems."
"The nomination of Judge Alito requires an especially long hard look by the Senate because of what happened last week to Harriet Miers," Reid said in a statement Monday. "Conservative activists forced Miers to withdraw from consideration for this same Supreme Court seat because she was not radical enough for them. Now the Senate needs to find out if the man replacing Miers is too radical for the American people."
He also criticized Bush for not choosing a woman or Hispanic for the court. "He has chosen yet another federal appellate judge to join a court that already has eight justices with that narrow background," Reid added. "President Bush would leave the Supreme Court looking less like America and more like an old boys club."
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also blasted Bush for not picking someone in the "mold of Sandra Day O'Connor, who would unify us."
"This controversial nominee, who would make the court less diverse and far more conservative, will get very careful scrutiny from the Senate and from the American people," Schumer said.
But Frist applauded the selection of Alito and warned lawmakers not to make the confirmation process a mud-slinging, all-out battle over the bench.
"I enthusiastically support it [the nomination] based on what I know today. He is clearaly a highly qualified nominee ... he's shown judicial restraint in the past," Frist told FOX News on Monday.
Democrats "will try to pick fights and and they will look for documents and they will use scare tactics but at the end of the day ... I think he will overwhelmingly be confirmed. If the Dems look for a fight, we will be ready to fight. This is a highly qualified nominee."
Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who served as a pointman in the Senate on behalf of Roberts during his confirmation process, agreed that a political fight over Alito is likely.
"I think it's going to be contentious but he'll [Alito] be confirmed by a bipartisan majority in the Senate," Cornyn told FOX News. "I think we're in a position to move rather quickly."
Unlike Miers, who has never been a judge, Alito, a jurist from New Jersey, has been a strong conservative voice on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush, seated him on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia at the age of 39 in 1990. A former deputy assistant to Attorney General Ed Meese in the mid-1980s, he also worked in President Reagan's solicitor general office.
Judicial conservatives praise Alito's 15 years on the Philadelphia-based court, a tenure that gives him more appellate experience than almost any previous Supreme Court nominee. They say his record shows a commitment to a strict interpretation of the Constitution, ensuring that the separation of powers and checks and balances are respected and enforced. They also contend that Alito has been a powerful voice for the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech and the free exercise of religion.
While Alito is known for being quiet, reserved and well-versed in constitutional law, and has a record that should please many conservatives, that record could also work against him.
Newsweek columnist Eleanor Clift said Alito's role as the sole dissenter on the 3rd Circuit court in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, which struck down a Pennsylvania law that required women to inform their husbands before they got an abortion, could cause Democratic objections.
"The Pennsylvania legislature could have rationally believed that some married women are initially inclined to obtain an abortion without their husbands' knowledge because of perceived problems — such as economic constraints, future plans or the husbands' previously expressed opposition — that may be obviated by discussion prior to the abortion," Alito wrote.
The decision by the court — considered one of the most liberal circuit courts in the country — was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 vote. The late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist cited Alito's reasoning in his own dissent.
"That (case) certainly would come up. I think we know the least about him. There is a fight no matter what. It depends on how big a fight the White House wants and how big a fight the Democrats dare weigh depending on the credentials of the nominee," Clift told FOX News.
Interest groups are already taking up positions on Alito.
"The president has made an excellent choice today which reflects his commitment to appoint judges in the mold of Scalia and [Clarence] Thomas," said Kay Daly, president of the conservative Coalition for a Fair Judiciary.
Some Democrats say the nominee is a way for Bush to assuage his conservative base and boost support amid sagging poll numbers due in part to the war in Iraq, hurricane-related political fallout and ongoing White House controversies like the CIA leak case.
"It's a pretty predictable move from a politically crippled president," said Democratic consultant Jim Jordan. "Toss out a judicial extremist to pacify his base and provoke a fight that he hopes changes the subject away from indictments and Iraq and Katrina and a soft economy."
Alito, an Italian-American who grew up in Trenton, N.J., has a resume filled with stepping stones to the high court. He was educated at Princeton University and earned a law degree from Yale University, the president's alma mater.
FOXNews' Carl Cameron, Sharon Kehnemui Liss, Liza Porteus and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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