Confirmation hearings began last week for Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush’s latest nominee to the Supreme Court. However, there are still some concerns for how this nomination will affect the Supreme Court if Alito is chosen.
If Alito is chosen, he will fill the seat left by the resigning Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. He will be the second new justice this year following the newly appointed Chief Justice John G. Roberts.
Conservatives and liberals are clashing over this nomination due to fear that Alito will limit the freedoms that are guaranteed in the Constitution. He is a well-known conservative who has ruled in the past that a federal ban on machine guns seemed unconstitutional and voted in favor of a Pennsylvania state law that required most married women to notify their husbands before getting an abortion.
Liberals fear that if Alito is chosen then many of the rulings the Supreme Court has handed down in the past will be reversed. “The thing we have to remember is that no one knows for sure what will happen,” said Sam McKinstry, professor in the political science department. “No one knows how he will vote when he gets on that bench.”
Others are opposed to the Alito nomination because he “was not in the mold of Justice O’Connor, the swing vote he would replace,” said New York Senator Charles E. Schumer in a New York Times article.
O’Connor was often the vote that would decide if the ruling would be more conservative or more liberal.
Another sore spot for the Alito nomination is the fact that he is not a woman. Many feel that since the newest judge would be replacing a woman, then the nominee should be a woman. Supporters of this argument, one of which is first lady Laura Bush, feel that it is a “pronounced retreat for women’s rights.”
“There’s no reason for people to feel this way,” McKinstry said. “There’s already a woman on the bench. It’s not that big a deal.”
Supporters of Alito are glad to see this nomination because they feel that he is one of the best qualified candidates for the job. He already has experience as a judge. He serves on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Newark, N.J.
Supporters also feel that Alito has the appropriate disposition for a Supreme Court judge. He is quiet and non-confrontational.
He is also described as neutral and someone who does not let personal beliefs affect his judgments.
During the televised nomination, President Bush described Alito as “one of the most accomplished and respected judges in America, and his long career in public service has given him an extraordinary breadth of experience. He has more prior judicial experience that any Supreme Court nominee in more than 70 years.”
Alito, 55, is a graduate of Princeton and Yale Law School. He served as assistant to the solicitor general during the Reagan administration and later he was the United States attorney for the District of New Jersey. Currently, Alito is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals.
However, McKinstry has his own ideas of who should be the newest nominee. “It all depends of if she would have said yes or not but I would have nominated Hillary Clinton,” he said.

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