Right On
Conservatives got what they wanted in Samuel Alito. He's no Harriet Miers--and no Sandra Day O'Connor either
Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito is a Philadelphia Phillies fan with an Ivy League pedigree; a straight-arrow husband and father lauded by friends and colleagues from both sides of the political aisle for his resolute character and first-rate intelligence. But more important--for now, anyway--he's a jurist with a deep, wide, and undeniably conservative legacy from 15 years on the federal bench.
Put another way, Alito is no Harriet Miers. And that alone has thrilled conservatives, who torpedoed President Bush's nomination of his White House lawyer and longtime friend.
Bush's quick, bounce back selection of Alito, a 55-year-old federal appeals-court judge and darling of the right, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor is being hailed by conservatives as a critical turning point in their decades-long effort to reshape America's foremost judicial body. Alito, they say, is a jurist in the mold of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, but with a proven judicial record. Should Alito be confirmed--and the betting is that he will be--the nation's highest court would move perceptibly to the right.
As Republicans giddily orchestrated a full-court press in anticipation of Alito's Senate confirmation hearings on January 9, liberals combed through the nominee's court opinions and dissents, as well as records from his seven years as a Reagan administration lawyer. What emerges, they say, is a portrait of a "conservative conservative" --someone who would not only seek to impose limits on abortion but also restrict hard-won civil rights. "No one is questioning his competence. No one is questioning his affability," said Nancy Zirkin of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "What we are seriously looking at is his judicial philosophy, which places him as a conservative activist."
There is little question that Alito would align more frequently with the court's most conservative justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, than has O'Connor, a Reagan appointee who is a moderate swing vote on cultural and personal-rights issues. In opinions and dissents from his many years on the Third Circuit, Alito has favored restrictions on abortions, sought to constrict the rights of plaintiffs to sue states for violations of federal laws, and acted friendly toward lowering the wall between church and state. He often cast a more skeptical eye than his liberal appeals-court colleagues on claims of racial and gender discrimination and habeas corpus petitions from death row inmates.
However, those who have worked with him--from fellow judges to law clerks--say that Alito, while conservative, is no ideologue. They describe the New Jersey native and Yale Law School graduate as fair and faithful to the law and as someone who hired both liberals and conservatives as clerks. "He doesn't bring personal political views to work," says Jay Jorgensen, a former clerk.
Though his writings--particularly dissents from the majority on the Third Circuit court, on which he has sat for the past 15 years--show a right-of-center judge who sets the bar high in cases of alleged discrimination or federal impingement on states' rights, Democrats may find themselves hard pressed to categorize Alito's record as extreme, even on abortion.
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