News On Judge Alito Confirmation Hearing & Comment: 01-10-06

News On Judge Alito Confirmation Hearing & Comment: 01-10-06

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20060110/pl_usnw/naral_pro_choice_america__alito_does_not_refute_his_opposition_to_roe_v__wade123_xml

NARAL Pro-Choice America: Alito Does Not Refute His Opposition to Roe v. Wade
=Tue Jan 10, 2006

To: National Desk
Contact: Ted Miller of NARAL Pro-Choice America, 202-973-3032

Contact Information:
NARAL Pro-Choice America
1156 15th Street, NW
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20005

Nancy Keenan, President
Please call for an appointment.

Main Number: (202) 973-3000
Main Fax: (202) 973-3096
Media Relations: (202) 973-3032
Membership Information: membership@ProChoiceAmerica.org
Legacy Gifts: plannedgiving@ProChoiceAmerica.org
Information Line: (202) 973-3018

For questions about a postal mail or email that you have received, please email: can@ProChoiceAmerica.org .

For other questions, general comments or feedback please use our feedback form.

http://www.naral.org/

http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/
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WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, issued the following statement after the first round of questioning of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito by Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) (R-Pa.).

"Under the first round of questions from Senator Specter, Samuel Alito did not refute his record of opposition to     Roe v. Wade. He did not state whether he believes that the right to privacy includes a woman's right to choose. He did acknowledge that his 1985 statement, which said he believes legally that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion, was accurate. At this early stage in the hearings, Alito is stealing a page from     Clarence Thomas' playbook. Thomas said the constitution included a right to privacy, then he voted to overturn Roe v. Wade one year later. Thus far, Alito has failed to give the American public any assurances that he would protect a woman's right to choose."

http://www.usnewswire.com/
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/© 2006 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/
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Analysis: Alito Treads a Delicate Path: 10 Jan 06
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060111/ap_on_go_su_co/alito_analysis_6;_ylt=AivHq0az0E8NJcmmhG0gdhxAw_IE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2ZGZwam4yBHNlYwNmYw--

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Samuel Alito is no John Roberts. Roberts wooed senators of both parties with a dazzling command of legal precedent and social ease to win confirmation as Chief Justice of the United States.

And, as Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee kept reminding Alito on Tuesday, neither is he another Sandra Day O'Connor, the retiring justice whom the conservative jurist would succeed.

O'Connor's moderate views on abortion and other social issues often made her the swing vote on a host of crucial 5-4 rulings.

"You are replacing someone who has been the fulcrum on an otherwise evenly divided court," Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), D-Del., told Alito.

Besieged with such comparisons, Alito navigated his way through Day Two of his confirmation hearings with mild manners and a course that seemed charted to not upset his chances of Senate confirmation, which now seems likely.

His day's mission — hour after hour — seemed to be to say nothing particularly attention-grabbing, out of character, or reflecting anger or lack of preparation.

When he defended his writings and opinions of the past, including divisive ones on abortion, presidential powers and strip searches, he sought to provide context — and to signal flexibility.

He dryly recited case law and details.

"He was quite confident," said James Thurber, a political scientist at American University. "He's smart, articulate and polite."

"And unless there is a major stumbling or bombshell, I think he will be confirmed," Thurber said.

Outnumbered Democrats appeared to lack the muscle to stop the nomination, and seemed increasingly unlikely to mount a filibuster to delay the vote, which could give Alito opponents more time to try to rouse the public, and senators, to block the nomination.

Alito defended past opinions in his 15 years as a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and his writings as a Reagan administration lawyer before that. But in some instances, Alito seemed to be hedging on them.

He opposed abortion as a Reagan administration official in the 1980s. Yet he testified that the Constitution protects the right to privacy, a basis for the 1973     Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. If confirmed, he would approach the issue of a woman's right to abortion with an open mind, he said.

But he also defended his 1991 dissent in a Pennsylvania case in which he supported a requirement that women seeking abortions must notify their husbands. {Provision being if she was in physical danger}

Alito said he agrees with retiring O'Connor's assertion in 2004 that President Bush does not have a blank check to wage war. But Alito stopped short of commenting on the legality of the president's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program or harsh treatment of terror-war detainees.

Fred McClure, a Republican attorney who worked in the Reagan and first Bush administrations and helped shepherd through the Senate the nominations of Justices Antonin Scalia,     David Souter and Clarence Thomas, said Alito exhibited "a calmness that is holding him in good stead."

Still, McClure cautioned, "It's a marathon type of experience" and the hearings could still get much more tense. "There will be other rounds," he said.

Alito sidestepped repeated questions on the court decision that settled the 2000 election in favor of Bush. He disputed Democratic charges of a bias toward favoring broad executive-branch authority.

And he sought to distance himself from his membership in a Princeton alumni group known for its opposition to opening the school to women and minorities — even though he cited that membership in a 1985 application for a Justice Department job.

Although not as smooth as Roberts, Alito did show "a mixture of being totally non-confrontational while also standing up for his position and being able to summon up a lot of detail," said Fred Greenstein, a Princeton political science professor.

Alito couldn't do much about senators singing the praises of Roberts and O'Connor. But there was one former Supreme Court nominee he clearly didn't want to be linked to: Robert Bork.

He told senators he disagreed with some of Bork's writings, even though he once praised him lavishly.

And he managed to avoid the kind of answer that helped sink the Bork's nomination 1987. Asked why he wanted to serve on the nation's highest court, Bork startled even some supporters when he said because it would be an "intellectual feast."

Asked the identical question by supportive Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz, Alito was ready.

"This is a way for me to make a contribution to the country and society," Alito said.

While the courts have an important role to play, he said, it is a limited one. "So it's important for them to do a good job of doing what they're supposed to do, but also not to try to do somebody else's job."

Something there for everyone.
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EDITOR'S NOTE — Tom Raum has covered Washington for The Associated Press since 1973.
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Alito Pleases GOP Senators, Not Democrats: 10 Jan 06
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20060111/ap_on_go_su_co/alito_73

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito picked his way carefully Tuesday through the issues of abortion and warrantless wiretapping, satisfying Senate Republicans at his confirmation hearings but provoking Democratic expressions of displeasure.

The Bill of Rights applies "in times of war and in times of national crisis," the 55-year-old appeals court judge said, although he declined to specify whether President Bush acted properly in ordering wiretaps without warrants in selected cases as part of the war on terror.

Asked repeatedly about abortion, he assured the Senate Judiciary Committee he would first take previous rulings into account. At the same time, he stressed that precedent, including the landmark 1973 decision establishing a woman's right to end her pregnancy, is not binding on the high court.

"I would approach the question with an open mind and I would listen to the arguments that were made," said Alito, who wrote two decades ago that he did not believe the Constitution includes the right to an abortion.

Alito, Bush's pick to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor for the swing seat on the court, answered questions for nearly 10 hours, seated alone at a witness table draped in red. A phalanx of relatives and administration aides sat behind him; a large digital clock stared out at him, marking time for each senator's allotted 30 minutes of questioning.

The New Jersey native distanced himself at times from some of the conservative views he expressed as a younger man, saying he had been a rank-and-file attorney in the Reagan administration at the time.

Under pressure from Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., Alito acknowledged he did not know whether he had ever followed through on a promise he made to the Senate at the time of his confirmation to the appeals court in 1990.

At the time, he said he would avoid cases involving the Vanguard mutual fund company, where he had money invested. But he told Feingold he did not know whether he had ever told appeals court officials about his pledge. And discarding an earlier explanation, he said, "It was not a computer glitch," that led to his participation in a 2002 case involving Vanguard. He quickly added that after realizing the circumstances, he made sure the case received "an entirely new appeal" in which he played no part.

The hearings unfolded in an atmosphere of political intensity, heightened by O'Connor's standing as a majority maker on numerous cases on a divided court. Bush's first pick for the seat, Harriet Miers, withdrew in the face of implacable opposition from abortion opponents and other conservatives, and Democrats have repeatedly questioned why the same groups have cleared Alito's appointment.

Alito also has been criticized by some as too likely to favor those in authority, including the president.

When asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record) on Tuesday whether a chief executive could "override the laws and immunize illegal conduct," he responded: "No person in this country is above the law. And that includes the president and it includes the Supreme Court."

Alito sidestepped a follow-up question about the recent disclosure that Bush authorized some wiretaps without warrants as part of the war on terror. The issue "is very likely to result in litigation in the federal courts. It could be in my court. It certainly could get to the Supreme Court," he said.

More broadly, Alito said the Bill of Rights "applies at all times. And it's particularly important that we adhere to the Bill of Rights in times of war and in times of national crisis because that's when there's the greatest temptation to depart from them."

The former Reagan administration lawyer and federal prosecutor had scarcely settled into his seat when Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., asked about a 1985 memo in which Alito wrote that the Constitution did not provide for a right to an abortion.

"Well, that was a correct statement of what I thought in 1985 from my vantage point in 1985, and that was as a line attorney in the Reagan administration," Alito replied, adding it also reflected his own belief.

Also on abortion, he defended his dissent in a 1991 case in which he voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law requiring women seeking abortions to notify their husbands. But he said at least twice he had "no agenda" to erase abortion rights, citing his rulings in two other cases as evidence.

Hours after Specter brought up the issue, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., raised it anew, saying that what he had heard from the witness led to "one inevitable conclusion: We can only conclude that if the question came before you, it is very likely that you would vote to overrule     Roe v. Wade."

Alito countered, " I don't know a way to answer a question about how I would decide a constitutional question that might come up in the future, other than to say I would go through that whole process" of judicial decision-making.

Given the strong possibility of a party-line vote in committee, it seemed at times that Alito was testifying at two parallel hearings. Democrats peppered him with questions about his rulings in cases involving civil rights, presidential power, criminal cases and more. Republicans often invited him to defend his actions and rulings of the past.

Leahy first mentioned Alito's membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a group that opposed admission of increased numbers of women and minorities.

"I really have no specific recollection of that organization," Alito said, although he did not dispute that he belonged to it.

Moments later, Sen. Orrin Hatch (news, bio, voting record), R-Utah, returned to the issue.

"Let me just ask you directly, on the record, are you against women and minorities attending colleges?"

"Absolutely not, senator. No," he replied.

Said Hatch, "You know, I felt that that would be your answer. I really did."

Outside the committee rooms, senators of both parties offered differing assessments of the proceedings.

"I think Judge Alito went farther than Chief Justice Roberts did" in discussing abortion, said Specter, signaling satisfaction with the responses to his questions.

Schumer, D-N.Y. dissented. "We're going to keep asking questions until we find out specific answers to how he feels about major issues confronting Americans today," he said.
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Comment: I saw the Senate Confirmation Hearing, for Judge Samuel Alito, U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit Supreme Court Justice Nominee, on C-SPAN and tried to pay attention to the whole process as thick as it was except for a few light moments {in between my domestic chores and other insurgent activities}.

Fascist Judge Alito would be a dangerous serpent on the Supreme Court. He is high up enough in the fascist pyramid to be more than just a mindless pawn, but he could be out of the Oval Office Cabel. He is sharp, shrewd and scientific in his spins on subjects and astute when it comes to sidetracking questions. Plus, he has a great grasp of details and a wealth of knowledge of legal historical precedents and many others pertinent areas. However, he seems to have a veiled favoritism for executive branch powers and privileges wielded by the Bush Regime, though of course he clearly stated that no one is above the law.  

Humane beings need to pay attention to such hearings as his appointment impacts on all of us and future generations. Nevertheless, it looks like he will eventually be accepted as the new Supreme Court Judge!

As an ol’ homeboy I knew from Hawaiian Garden Barrio in LA use to say: “If you can’t bedazzle  them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullshit!”
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~Venceremos! Peta de Aztlansacranative{at}yahoo.com
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