January 4, 2006
By JAKE BLEED
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
With Senate hearings over the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled to begin on Monday, supporters and opponents of his nomination said Tuesday they will campaign hard in Arkansas to sway the state's senators.
U.S. Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor are Democrats who say they're undecided about whether to support Alito.
The 55-year-old judge sits on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He is President Bush's second nominee to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was the first woman appointed to the court and a swing vote on issues such as abortion.
Supporters of Alito held a news conference Tuesday at the state Capitol. They said he would only interpret existing laws, not create new law through his rulings.
Jerry Cox, director of the Family Council Action Committee, said his group will visit 36 Arkansas cities in the next 10 days to push for Alito's confirmation.
Two former law clerks for Alito also spoke, describing the judge as a legal conservative.
"He's not driven by some agenda that he wants to get on the court," said David Moore, a law professor at the University of Kentucky who clerked for Alito in 2000-2001. "Because he doesn't have an agenda, you can't necessarily predict how Judge Alito is going to come out." Opponents will hold a news conference at the Capitol this morning to announce radio and television advertisements opposing Alito's nomination. Hadley Carson, a spokesman for the Arkansas Coalition for a Fair and Independent Judiciary, said she opposes the nomination not because of Alito's politics but what she said was his willingness to push his personal opinions into his interpretation of the law.
"I don't think that conservative or liberal comes into it," Carson said.
Both sides will air commercials this week about Alito. Both will target black voters.
Radio advertisements in support of Alito started airing Monday. Paid for by the Alexandria, Va.-based Judicial Confirmation Network, the ads have a black pastor tell listeners that Alito will stop "those who want to drive any religious expression out of the public square." "You know who they are," says Rev. Bill Owens of a group called the Coalition of African American Pastors, according to the advertisement. "The folks who sue towns for putting up nativity scenes and menorahs. Who tell little girls in the first grade that they can't draw pictures of our savior, Jesus Christ, for class projects." The ads ask listeners to tell Lincoln and Pryor they should support Alito's nomination and "tell them you want a champion." The advertisements will cost $10,000, said Gary Marx, executive director of the Judicial Confirmation Network. They will air in Little Rock, Helena- Helena, Pine Bluff and Brinkley, Marx said.
The anti-Alito ads will be announced today at a news conference with the NAACP's Washington bureau director and the state chairman of the NAACP, according to the Arkansas Coalition for a Fair and Independent Judiciary.
Carson said memos written by Alito while he was working in President Reagan's administration show he "will not be a strong voice for election protection in the African American community as we go forward." Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma will be asking supporters to contact the senators as well, said Marvin Schwartz, the group's vice president for community affairs.
On Monday, the Eagle Forum of Arkansas, sent an e-mail message urging Arkansans to contact the senators to support Alito.
Judicial nominees must gain the approval of the Senate before obtaining the lifetime appointment to the nation's highest court.
Both Lincoln and Pryor are waiting for Alito's testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee before determining if they will support him, said spokesmen for the senators.
Lincoln wants to see if Alito will become the "same type of defender of personal liberties and the right to privacy that Justice O'Connor was," said Drew Goesl, a spokesman for Lincoln.
Goesl said Alito's position on abortion was not "a determining factor" in whether Lincoln would support the judge. It is one of several "personal liberties" she hoped Alito would protect, Goesl said.
Lincoln had in the past said that she wanted O'Connor's replacement to be a woman. But she isn't disappointed with Alito's nomination, Goesl said.
Bush had earlier nominated Texas attorney Harriet Miers but she withdrew after coming under criticism from conservative lawmakers.
A spokesman for Pryor said he was reviewing Alito's record "to determine whether he possesses the proper judicial temperament and the ability to be fair and impartial." Speaking in an interview Tuesday, Alito's former clerks said the public image of Alito as a political conservative doesn't fit with their experience working with the man.
They described him as a hands-off manager who allowed his clerks freedom to develop their ideas and draft opinions, but had a keen eye for detail and could edit with a heavy hand.
"He was uncanny in his attention to detail and opinions," said Jack White, a San Francisco attorney who clerked for Alito in 2003-2004. "If his name was going to be on something, it was definitely something he wanted to say." But they also described Alito as conservative legally but unknown politically. Being a legal conservative, they said, means believing in limiting the role of courts to interpreting the law and leaving statutory creation to the legislative branch.
"If the law is counter to what I believe, it's a shame, but that's what the law is," said White, in describing Alito's legal philosophy. "I don't know and I can't say, to be honest with you, what the judge thinks about a lot of things." "I don't believe that to this day the judge knows what my philosophy is," said White, who said he was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the ACLU. "My philosophy in politics are very different from what has been described as his philosophy or temperament. But he doesn't know that."
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