Posted on 01/22/2006 2:15:49 PM PST by new yorker 77
WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. appears certain to be approved Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a straight, 10-8 party-line vote, setting the stage for a vigorous floor debate that will culminate in Alito's confirmation.
The Republicans have won the latest judicial battle - but the war over the divisive issues that dominated his hearings has only intensified, according to legal experts.
In fact, the 12-week process since his Oct. 31 nomination spotlighted the polarization of politics between Democrats and Republicans, particularly on abortion, executive power, individual rights, and other contentious matters destined for the docket of the Supreme Court.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), still smarting over the Democrats' insistence on delaying the Alito vote for a week, said the expected party-line vote in his panel "says more about the Senate than the nominee."
"Positions have really hardened," he said in an interview. "People who have voted for [Chief Justice John G.] Roberts don't want to cross party lines twice."
Three Democrats on the committee joined the 10 Republicans voting for Roberts' nomination last fall. One of them, ranking Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont, has already said he will not vote for Alito.
The party-line split is a "healthy reminder" that not all Supreme Court nominations are alike, said legal scholar Sarah Binder of George Washington University.
"When the question was whether to replace William H. Rehnquist with another conservative, some Democrats were willing to vote for Roberts," Binder said.
"But when the nomination is to fill a swing or critical seat - a nominee who could swing the ideological direction of the court - the opposition party is more likely to object if it feels the nomination will swing the court against its interests," she said. Alito would succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a frequent swing vote on social issues.
Alito, a 15-year member of the Philadelphia-based Third Circuit federal appeals court, met with more senators last week, mainly Democrats, hoping to increase his vote margin.
The White House predicted that Alito would garner 60 to 70 Senate votes - Roberts drew 78 - but that seems overly optimistic. For one thing, Democrats want to withhold votes and reduce his winning margin so that Alito can be used as a campaign issue in future elections.
"A 'no' vote is an easy vote," Specter said. "When you vote 'aye,' you're somewhat on the line for what the guy is going to do."
Legal experts say the intense politicizing of the confirmation process means that any hint of a judge's ideology can kill a nomination.
"In the present climate, really superb professional qualifications are essential to insulate a nominee from the inescapable ideological sticks and stones," said legal historian David J. Garrow of Cambridge University.
Alito will prevail, Garrow said, because there "really was no question about his personal and professional qualifications," while White House counsel Harriet Miers - President Bush's initial choice for O'Connor's seat - "went down the tubes" because "everyone realized she was a judicial turkey."
Five years of the Bush administration and a pair of new Supreme Court justices have changed the face of the federal judiciary.
"Certainly the impact of unified Republican control has been registered on the federal courts, as the proportion of Republican-appointed judges has increased markedly," Binder said. More than 200 federal judicial nominees of Bush's have been confirmed.
"The confirmation process itself shows the strains of strongly polarized political parties, at odds over the range of divisive issues that routinely come before the Supreme Court," Binder said.
Said Specter: "It's not just the confirmation process, it's the whole Senate - it's everything we do."
Specter cited the increasing acrimony over the reauthorization of the Patriot Act as an example and said that partisanship over the issue had caused deep strains on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
He said he was determined not to let such "bickering" destroy what he called the "equilibrium" on the Judiciary Committee.
In that vein, Specter spoke disparagingly of what he called "a clumsy ambush" by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D., Mass.) over Alito's alleged past membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a conservative group.
Specter said Kennedy waited until Alito's hearing was in progress to request documents on the group, though the Democrat had many prior opportunities to raise the issue with Specter.
As President Bush has proceeded to put a Republican imprint on all levels of the federal bench, Democrats have increased their scrutiny of his nominees.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) contends that only vigorous opposition has led Bush to refrain from selecting even more conservative judicial nominees.
Alito is an example, Schumer said. Legal observers think Alito is not as conservative as some candidates Bush was considering.
Asked whether he agreed with Schumer's assertion, Specter said, "If Sen. Schumer wants to take some credit for that, I won't stand in his way."
But how conservative will Alito be?
"I expect Alito will certainly be closer to [Justice Antonin] Scalia than to O'Connor," Garrow said, "and very likely will be closer to Scalia than [to] Roberts."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact staff writer Steve Goldstein at 202-383-6048 or slgoldstein@krwashington.com.
The shame is, that the GOP has done a lousy job of recruiting Senate candidates for '06. We had a real shot for pickups in ND, Neb, and Fla and an outside shot at one or two others. We have gone from a likely +3 to +5 to -1 to +1. With Snowe, Collins, and Chaffee (if he holds on), we needed a bigger margin. We caught a break when Lott said he would run again.
All the Dems had to do was refrain from all the crony rhetoric and Miers would probably be on the Court now. Thank God they are so dumb.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column: "The 'Chocolate' Minds of Mayor Nagin and Senator Clinton"
the Dems had nothing to do with taking down Miers, the conservatives took care of that.
Well they could have made it harder by treating her as competent and not demanding her records working with Bush. But they couldn't resist criticizing everything Bush does, so they actually played into the hands of Mier's conservative critics.
"But when the nomination is to fill a swing or critical seat - a nominee who could swing the ideological direction of the court - the opposition party is more likely to object if it feels the nomination will swing the court against its interests."
Only when the Dems are the ones in the minority. Our guys voted for Clinton's leftist people. What a double standard.
Then, if Republicans use the nuclear option, the Dems will claim that Republicans are planning to ram through Bush's choices without proper vetting. The Dems will call for more hearings in the Judicial Committee, insisting on asking Alito more questions.
The point of all this will be to delay the vote on Alito until AFTER the Dems have a chance to embarrass Bush over the domestic spying issue in THOSE upcoming hearings. The Dems want to hold up any votes in Congress until Bush appoints a special prosecutor.
Defidently win-win. Strategery at it's finest. Or maybe just lack of strategery by the other side.
I love it when the ant farm at DU goes crazy, like someone has a magnifying glass on them on a sunny day.
I love that too.
It's amazing how we went from being discouraged with the Meiers nomination to sitting at our computers chucklying over the way the democrats absolutely IMPLODED on National TV over Sam Alito and his wife running out crying! Not to mention ol' Teddy Kennedy has had HIS dirty laundry aired out on the pressers and that ought to cause his ticker to expire that much quicker...I can only dream of what 1-3 more supreme picks would look like between now and Jan. 2009....The icing would be for John Spencer to rise up in the NY Senate race and spank Hillary in a come from NO where race!
I knew this wasn't over by a longshot.
and I am still not confident the Rs can hold 50 votes for the nuclear option.
ping to post #87
The only good fallout from the "Gang of 14" that shut down the filibusters on lower court judges, is that seven Democrats committed themselves then to not conducting any filibuster, except in "extraordinary circumstances." None of them (mostly conservative-type Democrats and squishy Republicans) have suggested that the Alito nomination qualifies for that.
Therefore, I hold to my prediction that Reid had counted the noses, and does not have 40 votes to uphold a filibuster. For proof of that conclusion, I offer the evidence that Reid has not made any public threats, like he did before. Reid is a mouthy critter. Only when he knows he's beat does he (temporarily) shut his mouth.
That's how I reach the conclusion that Alito will be confirmed in ordinary course of business, but with less than 60 votes total.
John / Billybob
there is still plenty of time to float a new smear campaign. the word of any Democratic senator means nothing vis-a-vis the gang of 14 deal, they only need 3 of them to flip to hold 41 for the filibuster, and this "new information" would provide them all the cover they need.
the real confirmation battle for Alito is just beginning now.
Hope you're right but the pubbies can't handle a fight very well.
That is really quite good since the rats promised not to filibuster except in case of extreme circumstances. I'd like to see the filibuster done away with entirely, if it were up to me. It's archaic and anti-democratic. It overrides the will of the people. The House has done quite well without it for over 100 years. In fact, things can still get done in the house.
Sorry Mother, I just lost a load of cash on the Panther's game and am feeling evil. No excuse, just the USS Alaska wanting to loose a lot of mirvs.
I think that is the key phrase in all this.
Expect to hear it a lot, if what I was told comes to pass.
we all knew that this phrase was completely subjective - that the Dems could use it for any reason they wanted, this was always the weak link in this so-called agreement amongst the gang of 14.
the Dems are going to force the republicans to show their hand - 50 solid votes for the nuclear option. do we have it? I am not sure.
the media will spin whatever it is into a major story.
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