Judiciary Committee approves Alito

January 24, 2006

In a move that surprised no one, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Samuel Alito’s Supreme Court nomination less than an hour ago.

By a 10-8 party line vote with sometimes bitter partisan debate, the Senate Judiciary Committee today recommended that Samuel A. Alito Jr. be confirmed by the full Senate as associate justice of the Supreme Court.

The nomination will move to the full Senate Wednesday with a vote expected by the end of the week, according to the committee chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

The 10-8 vote on Alito compares with the 13-5 committee vote in support of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Sept. 22.

Before this afternoon’s vote, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) held up a magazine photo of Alito’s wife in tears during the hearing, and accused Democrats of “posturing,” “name calling,” “distortion,” and “smear.” Yeah, it was that kind of day.

But after seeing Specter lead the way on Alito, I kept thinking about Specter’s comments from November 2004, a day after he (and Bush) won another term in office.

Invigorated by a decisive win and the prospect of assuming a more prominent role in the U.S. Senate, Arlen Specter cautioned President Bush yesterday not to interpret his own victory as a clear mandate, and urged him to respond to the Republican Party’s more moderate wing.

Specter, as presumptive chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested that he would block any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court who opposed abortion rights. Reiterating his position that a woman’s right to choose is “inviolate,” he said overturning Roe v. Wade today would be akin to trying to reverse Brown v. Board of Education, the court’s 1954 landmark desegregation decision.

The same day, Specter added that he “expects” the president to be “mindful” of his concerns about Supreme Court nominees who would likely overturn Roe.

We got a good look at the depth of Specter’s moderate, pro-choice commitments by how he handled the Alito nomination, didn’t we?

So…Alito’s wife (who has diddly-squat to do with the Supreme Court or the Senate Judiciary Committee) breaks down when her husband is asked to defend the fact that he is a lunatic. That is “posturing,” “name calling,” “distortion,” and “smear” according to Cornyn. Holding up a picture of Alito’s wife crying and accusing Democrats of “posturing,” “name calling,” “distortion,” and “smear” at a press conference is, what????

  • I know MN, one thing I can’t stand is a bunch of POLITICANS blaming each other for playing POLITICS.

  • Jeremy, you seem to be a touch confused here. Senator Lindsay Graham played politics by making up phony comments and attributing them to Dems. Alito’s wife – whether staged or not – cries. Senator Coryn then attempts to make a big deal out of it.

    so which POLITICIAN is blaming “each other” for playing POLITICS?

    what i see is either a serendipitous or planned GOP propaganda game, against which the Dems seem helpless. could you please explain how you see it differently?

    meanwhile, specter, the clown who couldn’t decide whether Clinton should be found guilty or not guilty of the impeachment charges, sells out the constituents (like my mother) whom he’s misled for years about the depth of his committment to roe v. wade. what a joke.

  • I assume that when Sen. Cornyn accuses Democrats of “posturing,” “name calling,” “distortion,” and “smear” he is primarily talking about the Democrats’ concern about Alito’s association with the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, and possibly his holdings wrt the child-strip-search and police-shooting-fleeing-non-violent-juvenile cases. I admit that I did not watch much of the Alito hearings, in contrast to the Roberts’ hearings. Largely because, unlike Roberts, Alito was clearly a known quantity (I still hold out hope that Roberts may become an excellent Chief Justice).

    But here is my reponse to Sen. Cornyn. Americans are entitled to know that their judges and justices are fair. It is no secret what CAP was concerned about. At best — at best! — it was a snobby, elitist organization and at worst the members were sexists and racists. Alito’s association with the group is troubling to me and should be troubling to anyone who cares about appointing judges and justices who are fair. It should be troubling to Sen. Cornyn.

    When Democrats asked him about it, Alito should have appreciated the opportunity to clear the air. If I had been a member of an arguably racist and sexist organization and I did not share those views, I would welcome the opportunity to distance myself from the group.

    What I find far more troubling than Alito’s membership in CAP is the response that Alito and the GOP members of the judiciary committee had to questions about it: Their knee-jerk declarations that Democrats’ concerns are mere “posturing” and not principled. That tells me how little these guys care about issues of racism and sexism. They can’t even admit that membership in CAP is a legitimate issue.

    But that is not the Democrats’ problem. The burden is not on the Democrats to prove that CAP is a racist organization or that Alito was an active member or any of that . It is his burden to prove that he will be a fair judge and, if facts arise that question his fairness, it is his burden to explain away any doubts. If he cannot meet that burden, Democrats should not vote for him. They should say that, loudly and repeatedly. And they should say that they will never apologize for it. It is their duty to the American people to insure that justices are fair.

    The Democrats on the committee should tell Cornyn to go stuff it. I’d say, “In case anybody is wondering why the GOP gets 10% of the African-American vote, it might have something to do with the fact that they consider it ‘posturing’ to question someone’s membership in an exclusive organization. But that is their choice.”

  • The explanation, of course, came about a day AFTER the day after the elections in Nov 2004, when the Right Wing Hate Machine came down with all its might on the emboldened moderate Specter and openly threatened to deny him the Chair if he didn’t sit down, shut up and do what he was told. Might as well have been Darth Vader doing that invisible trachea pinch thing. Any spine Specter had was broken that day, and has shown no signs of recovering. Yeah, you can blame Specter for empty rhetoric, lack of veracity, and for being a snivelling twit, but lets not leave out the tale of Machiavellian power mad nut jobs engaging in ruthless anti-democratic behavior — that deserves its share of credit, too.

  • Specter is a scumbag. He’s pro-choice in an election year and a butt-licking groveler the rest of the time. He cares more about his chairmanship of the judiciary committee than he cares for principle, the rule of law, the constitution, or the future of American democracy.

    Unfortunately, because the media is very kind to him (what repug is the media not kind to?), most Pennsylvanians don’t realize what a smacked ass he really is. Other than a brief period following the Anita Hill debacle, he has been rather popular among PA Democrats. I just hope he retires after his term is up. He is just a tired old man who has no purpose in Congress other than maintenance of his own power and position.

  • All the same, I’m glad I lived long enough to see Ted Kennedy go at it with Arlen Specter.

  • Don’t worry about it, folks. The single best possible thing to happen for the Democrats would be the overturning of Roe. That would take the debate into every State Legislature, with the anti-Roe crowd demanding laws banning abortion. Remember the statistics. Almost a super-majority of people (this includes a lot of Republicans) don’t like the government having a hand in their personal lives. A lot of politicians at the state level will be tossed out on their asses over these laws.

    With Roe in place, it’s a winner for the Republicans. They can spout off all day about how they want to overthrow it, but the damn Supreme Court won’t let them… Once it’s gone, where’s their excuse? Can you say permanent minority party?

  • Actually, I’m with Castor Troy. I’m pro-choice, but would prefer to see people battle it out in the states. Not only because it would be a political winner for the Dems – which it would be – but because I think that the fundamental questions of when life begins or ends should be decided democratically. Just as any state should be permitted to legalize euthanasia without the Feds butting in, any state should be permitted to say when a life form may be granted legal protections.

  • …but lets not leave out the tale of Machiavellian power mad nut jobs engaging in ruthless anti-democratic behavior — that deserves its share of credit, too.-Zeitgeist

    Why did Bush choose Alito for the Supreme Court from amongst all of the other equally wingnutty Appeals Court judges? There was a very interesting, but not very widely cited, article in the NYTimes-I believe it was back in December- which sheds some light on that question. It is past 14 day so I can’t link to it. However, I found an article from USA Today which covers much of the same ground.

    For Sen. Arlen Specter, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito’s confirmation hearings next month will pit his deeply held political beliefs against his personal ties to the judge and his loyalty to the Republican Party.
    […]

    Alito, 50, is currently a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Pennsylvania. And then there are personal and common ties: The senator and Alito are both sons of immigrants and graduates of Yale Law School. Alito has the enthusiastic backing of Edward Becker, a senior judge on the 3rd Circuit and one of Specter’s oldest friends.

    Specter says Becker is “not an undue influence” on this thinking about Alito. Still, the retired judge has been a virtual fixture lately in the senator’s office, helping with legislation to aid asbestos victims.

    While Specter was being interviewed about Alito, Becker was working in an adjoining room. Specter invited him in. They bantered about their relationship, which dates back to 1950, when Specter was a University of Pennsylvania senior, Becker was a freshman, and the two commuted together on Philadelphia’s Frankford elevated line.

    Becker, appointed to the federal bench by Republicans, leaped at the opportunity to plug Alito. “He’s not an ideologue; he’s not a movement guy; he’s a real judge,” said Becker, who’s worked with Alito on about 1,000 cases.

    Becker described Alito as “a lovely guy” who “never decides more than he has to” and is “very respectful of precedent.” That’s important to abortion rights proponents, such as Specter, who argue that courts have upheld a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy so often that the law is considered “settled.”

    Alito’s personal views on controversial issues are irrelevant, Becker said. “People do not understand what happens when you become a judge,” he continued. “When you take that oath, you’re transformed … You don’t just do what you want to do. You do what you gotta do, what the law requires of you. I’ve always found that with Sam.”

    Is Specter convinced? “I’m listening,” he said.

    According to the NYTimes article the Specters, Beckers, and Alitos are often dinning companions. Rove found a way to circumvent Specter’s pro-choice position. Nominate a friend.

  • I’ve been meaning to bring this up for a while, though I’m not sure how convinced I am of it. Someone commented on NPR a while back that Specter knows that this is the best we’re going to get ouf of someone like Bush. I would like to think that if some pro-choice and pro-checks-and-balances Republicans stood up to the nomination Bush would back down and nominate someone else who is capable of getting some bipartisan support like Clinton’s choices did. But Bush it seems that Bush is a very stubborn man and wouldn’t respond well to a smackdown from the Senate. Spector might be on to something, in that case. But I don’t think there’s much about Alito that makes him worth accepting.

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