Alito: Clear and Ominous

In a party-line vote that offered little suspense, the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended on Tuesday that the full Senate confirm Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. as the country's 110th Supreme Court justice.

Given that the committee's 10 Republicans had announced their support for Alito before the vote, and that a simple majority is needed to push a nomination through to the Senate floor, President Bush crowed on Monday that supporters "don't have to worry about [Alito] in the committee." The 10-8 vote took place after a one-week delay, allowed under Senate rules, which Democrats requested; Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., termed the stay "unjustified and desperate partisan obstructionism."

Committee members gave very different opinions Tuesday on Alito's qualifications. "Every member of this committee agrees that Judge Alito is one of the most well-qualified nominees ever nominated to serve on the Supreme Court," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. But Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., countered that Alito's opinions suggest he would push the court rightward and demonstrate a "well-formed philosophy of limited rights and restricted civil liberties."

Now that the committee has voted, Republicans plan to begin debating Alito's nomination on the Senate floor Wednesday and are hoping for a confirmation vote on Friday. They're anxious to seat Alito before President Bush's State of the Union address on Jan. 31, although Democrats could make that difficult with a long floor debate. With Alito's confirmation almost a given, however, Democrats are already turning most of their attention to charges of Republican corruption.

Several Democrats on the committee spoke out last week against the conservative 55-year-old Alito, who would succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a moderate who has often been the court's swing vote. While Alito "responded to hundreds of questions [in his testimony], he adequately answered far too few of them," particularly those regarding the limits of a president's power, Ranking Member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a speech at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., in a speech to the Center for American Progress in Washington, called Alito's record "clear and ominous" and said the stakes for his confirmation "could not be higher."

But as Alito's nomination heads to the Senate floor, he is likely to win confirmation without a bruising filibuster fight. The committee's only woman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told "Face the Nation" last week that although she thinks Alito would most likely align himself with Justice Antonin Scalia, arguably the court's most conservative member, "that doesn't mean he shouldn't be on the court."

Alito is expected to fall short of Chief Justice John Roberts' 78-22 confirmation, but he is likely to receive support from just about all of the chamber's 55 Republicans. Most of the 44 Democrats are expected to oppose him, with the exception of Nebraska's Ben Nelson, who announced his support for Alito last week. Conservative groups are targeting Democrats such as Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Tim Johnson of South Dakota, both of whom backed Roberts and hail from states that Bush won easily in 2004.

Several other Democrats who supported Roberts, including Sen. Max Baucus of Montana and Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado, have announced that they will vote against Alito. Baucus said last week that Alito is "too far out politically of the mainstream of judicial thinking."

Democrats will likely use the upcoming Senate debate to build a public case against Alito on issues such as abortion, executive authority and affirmative action, which they were largely unable to do during his 18 hours of committee testimony. Kennedy complained last week that nomination hearings have become "stylized and choreographed appearances in which nominees are coached to say as little as possible."