Bush taps Alito for Supreme Court
Some say Alito will face criticism from the left.
Published Nov. 1, 2005
President George W. Bush announced on Monday morning that he would nominate Samuel Alito to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court, replacing retiring justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
People on both sides of the political aisle criticized the nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers, who withdrew her nomination last Thursday. Democrats claimed she lacked judicial experience and qualifications for the Supreme Court, while Republicans said they were uneasy with the nomination because of a lack of a paper trail to show how she might rule on issues such as abortion and affirmative action.
Law professor Richard Reuben said it was surprising and a bit disappointing that the nominee was not a woman, considering Alito, a federal appeals court judge, would replace the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court.
"There are many highly qualified conservative women judges out there," he said.
Alito, a 55-year-old Italian-American from New Jersey, is a graduate of Princeton University and the Yale University Law School. He served in the Justice Department during the Reagan administration in the offices of the Solicitor General and the Attorney General.
He has become known for his conservative views on that court, especially for his dissent in the case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which struck down a law requiring a woman to notify her husband before getting an abortion. Former Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who died in September, quoted Alito's opinion in his own dissent when the case went to the Supreme Court.
Sen. Kit Bond, one of Missouri's two Republican U.S. Senators, said Alito is a qualified candidate.
"It's clear to all but the most partisan individuals that Alito's impressive legal education and professional experience make him eminently qualified to serve on the Supreme Court," he stated in a news release.
College Democrats President Megan Block said Alito was likely to be "more polarizing than John Roberts was," because Roberts had less of a record of his conservatism than Alito has. But, Block said she was not surprised Bush nominated a conservative because the party was so fractured over the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the 2,000th reported U.S. military death in the Iraq war and Miers's withdrawal as a Supreme Court nominee last week.
Reuben said that though the conservative base had been fractured, they now can rally around the new nominee because of his proven conservative record. He also said he thinks the hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee would be contentious and confrontational due to resistance to the nominee by the Democrats.