Democrats Ready to Go After Alito
High Court Nominee's Memos Opposing Abortion Likely to Be Focal Points at Hearings
Senate Democrats are expected to attack Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. on multiple fronts at the confirmation hearing that opens at noon today, but their strongest ammunition is likely to come from the nominee's own hand.
Alito wrote two memos in 1985 that rocked political circles when they were made public last November. In one, an application for a promotion in the Reagan administration, Alito wrote that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion." He said he was proud to fight for such causes in which "I personally believe very strongly," and he cited his membership in a conservative Princeton alumni group that has been widely criticized for opposing efforts to bring more women and minorities to that university.
The other memo outlined a strategy for attacking the landmark 1973 court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, asking: "What can be made of this opportunity to advance the goals of bringing about the eventual overruling of Roe v. Wade and, in the meantime, of mitigating its effects?" Alito and his supporters have sought to put some distance between him and the memos, and Republicans predict he will survive this week's grilling and be confirmed to succeed centrist Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a step that could shift the court notably to the right. But Judiciary Committee Democrats say they will press him to explain his writings, and they warn that peril may lie in his fully embracing them or trying to disavow them.
"He indicates in his job application his view about what the Constitution guarantees in terms of, for example, women and the issue on abortion," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the committee's most senior member, said yesterday on ABC's "This Week." "We haven't had a statement like that since Robert Bork," the outspoken conservative who was rejected for a Supreme Court seat in 1987.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/08/AR2006010800794.html