United States President George Bush on Monday began the task of rallying the Republican faithful around his beleaguered presidency by picking a conservative Judge, Samuel Alito, as his new nominee for the Supreme Court.
Conservative pressure groups enthusiastically embraced the nomination, in contrast to their bitter opposition to Bush’s previous nominee, Harriet Miers — the White House counsel forced to withdraw her name on Thursday.
Democrats complained that the president had bowed to the extreme wing of his party, and raised concerns about Alito’s stand on abortion and civil rights. Their reaction raised the possibility that they will try to block the nomination in the Senate, triggering a constitutional battle. Anticipating that prospect as he introduced Alito, Bush urged the Senate ”to act promptly on this important nomination so that an up or down vote is held before the end of this year”.
The nomination had the result of temporarily changing the subject in Washington after the worst week of the Bush presidency, in which Miers was rejected and Lewis Libby, a top White House official, was indicted for perjury, lying to investigators and obstruction of justice. The Vice-President, Dick Cheney, on Monday announced that he will replace Libby as his chief of staff with two aides — David Addington, his legal counsel, and John Hannah, Libby’s former deputy.
But though the Alito nomination dominated the morning news, it became clear a few hours later how hard it will be to force Libby’s involvement in an intelligence-leak scandal out of the headlines when news broke that he will make his first court appearance on Thursday.
Bush presented Alito, who was made an appeals court judge by the president’s father in 1990, as a brilliant jurist who had ”won admirers across the political spectrum”. However, the initial reaction pointed to a polarising battle in the Senate.
The Concerned Women of America (CWA) group, which had turned against Miers on the grounds she had not proved herself as a warrior in the battle over abortion, was among the first to welcome Alito’s selection in her place.
”Judge Alito has always been one of our top choices for the Supreme Court,” Jan LaRue, the CWA’s chief counsel, said, predicting that he will ”sail through to confirmation by an overwhelming majority”.
The reaction of most liberal pressure groups was just as categorical. Ralph Neas, the head of People for the American Way, said: ”Right-wing leaders vetoed Miers because she failed their ideological litmus test. With Judge Alito, President Bush has obediently picked a nominee who passes that test with flying colours.”
The organisation said it will wage ”a massive national effort” to defeat the nomination.
In the Senate, Democrats expressed scepticism about the judge’s record, portraying him as a right-wing radical, particularly for his 1991 opinion that a pregnant wife should have to inform her husband before having an abortion. The ruling is taken on both sides of the debate as a sign that once he is on the Supreme Court, Judge Alito would vote to overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that guaranteed the right to an abortion.
”It’s sad that the president felt he had to pick a nominee likely to divide the country,” said Senator Charles Schumer, who added that Bush appeared anxious to smooth ”ruffled feathers” on the right of the Republican party.
Democrats expressed doubts that the Senate would complete its confirmation hearings before the end of December as the president asked, saying they would have to look through thousands of pages of documentation on Alito’s legal history, including his time working as a legal adviser to the Reagan administration.
However, it was far from clear on Monday whether Senate Democrats would have the 40 votes necessary to sustain a filibuster.
”Talk of a filibuster is not unrealistic but it is also a little premature,” Jennifer Duffy, an analyst at the Cook Political Report online magazine, said. ”Some Democrats will test public sentiment before making a judgement, especially those in Republican-leaning states.”
In response to previous filibuster threats, Republicans have said they would respond by changing Senate rules to ban the filibuster on judicial votes, a move that would trigger a constitutional clash.
Profile: Samuel Alito
Alito is everything Miers was not. Unlike Bush’s previous, unsuccessful choice for the vacant seat on the US Supreme Court, he is a judge with impeccable credentials, considerable experience, and — most importantly for Bush — a track record as a conservative.
As a federal judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, Alito has generally, but not exclusively, ruled on the right. In a 1991 case, Planned Parenthood v Casey, he issued a minority opinion that a pregnant wife should be required to inform her husband before getting an abortion.
Religious conservatives also applauded a ruling in 1999 in which he argued that the constitutional separation of church and state was not violated by a town-hall holiday display that included a nativity scene and a menorah.
His conservative rulings have won him the nickname ”Scalito”, implying he is a junior version of the most aggressively conservative Judge on the Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia.
However, those who know Alito say he is far less abrasive than Scalia and less contemptuous of those who disagree with him. He is popular enough in Philadelphia for the café near the appeals court to name a coffee blend after him.
As the New Jersey-born son of an Italian immigrant, his ”American dream” ascent will help sell him in Congress. His scholastic record at Princeton and Yale will be unassailable, so Democrats will begin their research by looking at the advice he gave Ronald Reagan’s administration as deputy assistant attorney general and assistant to the solicitor general in the 1980s and his rulings since the first president Bush appointed him to the appeals court in 1990. — Guardian Unlimited Â