Judge Sam Alito - Senate Confirmation Hearing Day 1 Highlights

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/09/AR2006010900755.html

Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC)

SPECTER: Senator Graham, you may begin.

GRAHAM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And welcome back, Judge. I'd hate for you to miss my opening statement.

(LAUGHTER)

It would be a loss for the ages.

Welcome to the committee. Welcome to one of the most important events in your life.

You've got the people that mean the most here with you today, your family. And I know they're proud of you. And I'm certainly proud of what you have been able to accomplish.

And to say the least, you come to the Senate in interesting political times.

There is going to be a lot of talk by the senators of this committee about concepts that are important to Americans.

But what I worry the most about -- your time, believe it or not, will come and go. You will not be here forever; it may seem that way. But I think you're going to be just fine. I don't know what kind of vote you're going to get, but you'll make it through.

It's possible you could talk me out of voting for you, but I doubt it. So I won't even try to challenge you along those lines. I feel very comfortable with you being on the Supreme Court based on what I know.

And the hearings will be helpful to all of us to find out some issues that are important to us.

We had a talk recently about executive power. That's very important to me. In a time of war, I want the executive branch to have the tools to protect me, my family and my country.

But also I believe even during a time of war, the rule of law applies. And I've got some problems with using a force resolution to the point that future presidents may not be able to get a force resolution from Congress if you interpret it too broadly.

And we've talked about those things and we'll talk more about it.

But I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the points my colleagues have been making.

Everybody knows you're a conservative.

GRAHAM: The question is: Are you a mainstream conservative?

Well, the question I have for my colleagues is: Who would you ask to find out? Would you ask Senator Kennedy? Probably not.

If you asked me who a mainstream liberal is, I would be the worst person to pick, because I do not hang out over there.

(LAUGHTER)

I expect that most all of us, if not all of us, will vote for you. And I would argue that we represent from the center line to the right ditch in our party and, if all of us vote for you, you've got to be pretty mainstream.

So the answer to the question, "Are you a mainstream conservative?" will soon be known. If every Republican member of the Judiciary Committee votes for you, and you're not mainstream, that means we are not mainstream. It is a word that means what you want it to mean.

Advise and consent means what? Whatever you want it to be. Advise and consent means the process has got to work to the advantage of people I like and with people I don't want on the court, it is a different process. That is politics.

Every senator will have to live within themselves as to what they would like to see happen for the judiciary.

My main concern here is not about you; it's about us. What are we going to be doing as a body to the judiciary when it is all said and done?

Roe v. Wade and abortion: If I wanted to work for Ronald Reagan, one of the things I would tell the Reagan administration is I think Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. They are likely to hire me because they were trying to prove to the court that the court took away from elected officials a very important right, protecting the unborn.

I was on the news program with Senator Feinstein this weekend, who is a terrific person. She made very emotional, compelling argument that she can remember back alley abortions and women committing suicide when abortion was illegal.

I understand that is very seared in her memory banks and that is important to her.

Let me tell you, there's another side to that story. There are millions of Americans -- a bunch of them in South Carolina -- who are heartsick that millions of the unborn children have been sent to a certain death because of what judges have done.

GRAHAM: It's a two-sided argument. It's an emotional event in our society.

They're talking about filibustering maybe if you don't give the right answer. Well, what could possibly be the right answer about Roe v. Wade? If you acknowledge it's a precedent the court, well, then you would be right. If you refused to listen to someone who's trying to change the way it's applied or to overturn it and you will say, "Here, I will never listen to them," you might talk me out of voting for you.

I don't think any American should lose the right to challenge any precedent that the Supreme Court has issued because the judge wanted to get on the court.

And you may be a great fan of Roe v. Wade and you think it should be there forever. There may be a case where someone disagrees with that line of reasoning.

What I want from the judge is an understanding that precedent matters but the facts, the brief and the law is what you're going to base your decision on as to whether or not that precedent stands, not some bargain to get on the court.

Because I can tell you, if that ever becomes a reason to filibuster, there are plenty of people that I personally know, if it became fashionable to stand on the floor of the Senate to stop a nominee on the issue of abortion, feel so deeply, so honestly held belief that an abortion is certain death for an unborn child that they would stand on their feet forever.

And is that what we want? Is that where we're going as a nation? Are we going to take one case and one issue, and if we don't get the answer we like that represents our political view on that issue, are we going to bring the judiciary to their knees? Are we going to say as a body, "It doesn't how matter how smart you are, how many cases you decided, how many things you've done in your life as a lawyer, forget about it; it all comes down to this one issue"?

If we do, if we go down that road, there will be no going back. And good men and women will be deterred from coming before this body to serve their nation as a judge at the highest levels.

What we're saying and what we're doing here is far more important than just whether or not Judge Alito gets through the process.

GRAHAM: What is the proper role of a senator when it come to advise and consent?

I would argue that, if we start taking the one or two cases we cherish the most and make that a litmus test, that we've let our country down and we've changed a historical standard.

Elections matter. Values debates occur all owe this country. They occur in presidential elections. It is no mystery as to what President Bush would do if he won. He would pick people like John Roberts and Sam Alito.

That's what he said he would do. That's exactly what he's done. He's picked solid, strict constructionist conservatives who have long, distinguished legal careers.

What did President Clinton do? He picked people left of the center who worked for Democrats. It cannot surprise anybody on the other side that two people we picked worked for Ronald Reagan. We like Ronald Reagan.

President Clinton picked Ginsburg and Breyer. Justice Ginsburg was the general counsel for the ACLU. If I'm going to base my decision based on who you represented as a lawyer, how in the world could I ever vote for somebody that represented the ACLU?

If I'm going to make my decision based on whether or not I agree with the Princeton faculty and administration policies on ROTC students and quotas and I am bound by that, I'll get killed at home.

What the president does with their admission policies and whether or not an ROTC unit should be on a campus is an OK thing to debate. At least I hope it is OK.

And I think most American are going to be with the group that you're associated with, not the policies of Princeton.

The bottom line is you come here as an individual with a life well-lived. Everybody who seems to work with you as a private lawyer, public lawyer, as a judge, admires you, even though they may disagree with you.

GRAHAM: My biggest concern, members of this committee, is if we don't watch the way we treat people like Judge Alito, we're going to drive good men and women away from wanting to be served.

There'll be a Democratic president one day. I do not know when, but that's likely to happen. There'll be another Justice Ginsburg come over. If she came over in this atmosphere, she wouldn't get 96 votes. Judge Scalia wouldn't get 98 votes. And that's sad to me.

I hope we'll use this opportunity to not only treat you fairly but not use a double standard. I hope we'll understand that this is bigger than you, this is bigger than us. And the way we conduct ourselves and what we expect of you, we better be willing to expect when we're not in power.

Thank you.

SPECTER: Thank you, Senator Graham.


Senator John Cornyn (R-TX)

SPECTER: Senator Cornyn?

CORNYN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Judge Alito, welcome to the committee, and to your family as well.

I'm a little surprised to learn that you have a triply high burden for confirmation here. I guess we'll get a chance to explore that, and the fairness of that, or whether all nominees ought to have the same burden before the committee.

What I want to also make sure of is that we don't hold you to a double standard, that we don't expect of you answers to questions that Justice Ginsburg and others declined to answer in the interest of the independence of the judiciary and in the interests of observing the canons of judicial ethics.

Nevertheless, we have already heard a great deal about you and your credentials for the Supreme Court. As has been noted, you serve with distinction on the court of appeals. You served as United States attorney. And, indeed, you served your entire adult life in public service.

We've also heard a bit today, and you'll hear more as these proceedings unfold, about the testimonials from people who have worked with you, people who know you best. Whether liberal, moderate or conservative the judges on your court have praised you as a thoughtful and open-minded jurist, and we'll hear more from them later in the week.

CORNYN: The same can be said of the law clerks who've worked with you over the last 15 years. As you know, law clerks are those who advise appellate judges on the cases they hear. And you've had law clerks from all political persuasions, from members of the Green Party to Democrat clerks, even a clerk that went on to serve as counsel of record for John Kerry's campaign for president.

And every single one of them says that you will make a terrific Supreme Court justice, that you apply the law in a fair and even- handed manner, and that you bring no agenda to your job as a judge.

If fairness, integrity, qualifications and an open mind were all that mattered in this process, you would be confirmed unanimously, but we know that's not how the process works or at least how it works today.

We know that 22 senators, including five on this committee, voted against Chief Justice Roberts' confirmation just a few short months ago. And my suspicion is that you do not come here with a total level playing field.

I'm reluctantly inclined to the view that you and other nominees of this president to the Supreme Court start with no more than 13 votes on this committee and only 78 votes in the full Senate, with a solid, immovable, unpersuadable block of at least 22 votes against you no matter what you say and no matter what you do.

CORNYN: Now, that's unfortunate for you, but it is even worse for the Senate and its reputation as the world's greatest deliberative body.

The question is: Why, with so many people from both sides of the aisle and across the ideological spectrum supporting your nomination are liberal special interest groups and their allies devoting so much time and so much money to defeat your nomination?

The answer, I'm afraid, is that there are a number of groups who really don't want a fair-minded judge who has an openness to both sides of the argument. Rather, they want judges who will impose their liberal agenda on the American people; views so liberal that they cannot prevail at the ballot box.

So they want judges who will find traditional marriage limited to one man and one woman unconstitutional. They want judges who will ban any religious expression from the public square. They even want judges who will prohibit school children from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

As I say, none of these are mainstream positions embraced by the American people, so the strategy is to try to impose their agenda through unelected judges.

Judge Alito, the reason why these groups are trying to defeat your nomination because you won't support their liberal agenda is precisely why I support it.

I want judges on the Supreme Court who will not use that position to impose their personal policy preferences or political agenda on the American people.

CORNYN: I want judges on the Supreme Court who will respect the words and the meaning of the Constitution, the laws enacted by Congress and the laws enacted by state legislatures.

Now, this doesn't mean, as you know, that a judge will always reach what might be called a conservative result. It means that judges will reach whatever result is directed by the Constitution, by the law, and by the facts of the case.

Sometimes, it might be called conservative; sometimes it might be called liberal. But the point is that the meaning of the Constitution and other laws should not change unless we the people change them.

A Supreme Court nomination and appointment is not a roving commission to rewrite our laws however you and your colleagues see fit. I'll give you one example where I believe our Supreme Court has been rewriting the law for a long time. It's a narrative near and dear to me and others in this country. And I'm speaking of the ability of people of faith to freely express their beliefs in the public square.

There is no doubt where the founding fathers stood on this issue. They believed that people of faith should be permitted to express themselves in public. They believed that this country was big enough and free enough to allow expression of on enormous variety of views and beliefs.

They believed that freedom of expression included religious views and beliefs, so long as the government did not force people to worship in a particular matter and remain neutral on what those views and beliefs were.

CORNYN: But this country has gotten seriously off track under the Supreme Court when it went so far as to limit the right of even private citizens to freely express their religious views in public.

As I mentioned to you when we met early on in these proceedings, I had an opportunity, as some have had on this committee, to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court.

When I was attorney general, I argued a case -- helped argue a case called -- Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe. The school district in that case had the temerity to permit student-led, student-initiated prayer before football games. And, of course, someone sued. I repeat, this was student-led, student-initiated, voluntary prayer. The Supreme Court held by a vote of 6-3 that this was unconstitutional.

The decision led the late Chief Justice Rehnquist to remark that the court now, quote, "exhibits hostility to all things religious in public life." And it's hard to disagree with him.

Depictions or expressions of sex, violence, crime are all permitted virtually without limit; but religion, it seems, never.

Now, this is where you come in, Judge.

I appreciate your record on the 3rd Circuit respecting the importance of neutrality of government when it comes to religious expression on a voluntary basis by individual citizens.

It's my sincere hope that when confirmed that you will persuade your colleagues to reconsider their attitude toward religious expression and grant it the same freedom currently reserved for almost all other non-religious speech.

No wonder many in America seem to believe that the court has become one more inclined to protect pornography than to protect religious expression.

Most people in America don't believe that "God" is a dirty word, but the sad fact is that some Americans are left to wonder whether the Supreme Court might have greater regard for it if it was.

CORNYN: Again, welcome to the committee, and thank you for your continued willingness to serve our great nation.

SPECTER: Thank you, Senator Cornyn.


Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS)

BROWNBACK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, Judge Alito, your wife, family.

BROWNBACK: Delighted to have you here. You only have two more pitcher and then you get a bat. So I'm sure people will be happy to hear from you.

Mr. Chairman, before I go forward with my statement, would like to entire into the record a summary of four cases that Judge Alito has ruled on where he backed employees claiming racial discrimination. It's been entered a couple of times here that he hasn't ruled in favor of people claiming racial discrimination. I have a summary of four cases where he has, and I want to enter that into the record.

SPECTER: Without objection, they will be made a part of the record.

BROWNBACK: Judge Alito, welcome you to the hearing. This is an extraordinary process. It's a fabulous process and a chance for a discussion with you, with the American public about the role of the judiciary in our society today.

It's become an ever-expanding and important discussion because of the expanding role of the courts in recent years in the American society.

When the courts improperly, I believe, assume the power to decide more political than legal issues in nature, the people naturally focus less on the law and more on the lawyers that are chosen really to administer the law. Most Americans want judges who will stick to interpreting the law rather than making it.

It's beyond dispute that the Constitution and its framers intended this to be the role of judges. For instance, although he was perhaps the leading advocate for expansive political power, you can look at founding father Alexander Hamilton nevertheless assuring -- assuring -- the countrymen in Federalist 78 that the role of the federal courts under the proposed Constitution would be limited.

He says the courts must declare the sense of the law, and if they should be disposed to exercise will instead of judgment, the consequences would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body.

BROWNBACK: Seems like we're back at an old debate: the role the courts.

And I believe you and others would look and say that the role of the courts is limited and it's not to decide political matters.

Chief Justice Marshall later explained in Marbury v. Madison, the Constitution permitted federal courts neither to write nor execute the laws but rather to say what the law is. That narrow scope of judicial power was the reason that people accepted the idea that the federal courts could have the power of judicial review; that is, the ability to decide whether a challenged law comports with the Constitution.

The people believed that while the courts would be independent, they would defer to the political branches on policy issues.

This is the most foundational and fundamental of issues. And yet we are back and discussing it because of the role of the judiciary expanding in this society today.

It may seem ironic that the judicial branch preserves its legitimacy through refraining from action on political questions. That concept was put forward best by Justice Frankfurter, appointed by President Roosevelt.

He said courts are not representative bodies. They're not designed to be a good reflex of a democratic society. Their judgment is best informed and, therefore, most dependable within narrow limits.

I want to take on this point of the reservation of certain seats on the bench for certain philosophies, which it seems as if we've heard a great deal about today, that you need to be like Sandra Day O'Connor in judicial philosophy to be able to go on her seat on the bench.

Some interest groups have put forward that philosophy and argued that you deserve closer scrutiny because you do not appear to have the same philosophy or are even in opposition if it is not determined that you do not have that same judicial philosophy.

If this testimony suggests that that would change the ideological balance, if you would change the ideological balance, therefore you should not be approved, I would say that that notion is not anywhere in the understanding of the role of the judges.

BROWNBACK: It creates a double standard for your approval and looks conveniently -- it looks suspiciously convenient for the opposition to put forward.

Seats on the bench are not reserved for causes or interests. They're given to those who will uphold the rule of law so long as the nominee is well-qualified to interpret and apply the law.

This has long been the case of the Supreme Court. And I want to note here that, historically, the make-up of the court has changed just as elected branches have change.

In fact, nearly half of the justices, 46 of 109, who have served on the Supreme Court replaced justices appointed by a different political party.

In recent years, even as the court has become an increasingly political body, the Senate is not focused on preserving any perceived ideological balance when Democrat presidents have appointed people to the court.

The best example of that is the Senate rejecting that notion when Ruth Bader Ginsburg came in front of the Senate and was approved 96-3 to be on the Supreme Court to replace conservative justice Byron White. This is in 1993.

Now, Justice Ginsburg, it was noted earlier, was a general counsel for the ACLU, certainly a liberal group. It was abundantly clear during the confirmation hearing that Ginsburg would swing the balance of the court to the left.

But because President Clinton won the election and because Justice Ginsburg clearly had the intellectual ability and integrity to serve on the court, she was confirmed.

BROWNBACK: During her hearing, hardly any mention was made about balance with Justice White. The only discussion occurred about Justice White was when Senator Kohl, our colleague, asked her what she thought of Justice White's career, and she started off by saying that she was not an athlete.

History has shown that she did, in fact, dramatically change the balance of the court in many critical areas, such as abortion, the privacy debate expansion and child pornography. And I have behind me three of the key cases where Justice White ruled one way, even wrote the majority opinion, and Justice Ginsburg ruled the other way, with the majority.

You talk about a swing of balance, and yet the issue wasn't even raised at Justice Ginsburg's confirmation hearing. And yet now it seems as if that's the paramount issue -- not only the paramount issue, it actually makes you have to go to a higher standard to be approved.

And that's just simply not the way we've operated in the past, nor is it the way we should operate now.

As I stated at Justice Roberts' hearing, the court's injected itself into many of the political debates of our day. And as my colleague Senator Cornyn has mentioned, the court's injected itself in the definition of marriage, deciding whether or not human life is worth protecting, permitting government to transfer private property from one person to another, even interpreting the Constitution on the basis of foreign and international laws.

The Supreme Court has also issued and never reversed a number of decisions that are repugnant to the Constitution's vision of human dignity and equality.

Although cases like Brown v. Board of Education in my state are famous for correcting constitutional and court errors, there remain several other instances in which the court strayed and stayed beyond the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

BROWNBACK: Among the most famous of these Supreme Court cases of exercise of political power I believe are the cases of Roe V. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, two 1973 cases based on false statements which created a constitutional right to abortion.

And you can claim whatever you want to of being pro-life or pro- choice, but the right to a abortion is not in the Constitution. The court created it. It created a constitutional right. And these decisions removed a fully appropriate political judgment from the people of the several states and has led to many adverse consequences.

For instance, it's led to the almost complete killing of a whole class of people in America. As I noted to my colleagues in the Roberts' hearings, this year -- this year -- between 80 percent to 90 percent of the children in America diagnosed with Down's Syndrome will be killed in the womb simply because they have a positive genetic test which can be wrong, and is often wrong, but they would have a positive genetic test for Down's Syndrome and they will be killed.

America is poorer because of such a policy. We are at our best when we help the weakest. The weak make us strong. To kill them makes us all the poorer, insensitive, calloused and jaded.

Roe has made it not only possible, but has found it constitutional to kill a whole class of people, simply because of their genetic make-up.

BROWNBACK: This is the effect of Roe.

I think this is a proper issue for us to consider and the judge you're replacing noted one time, quote, "that the court's unworkable scheme for constitutionalizing abortion has had the institutional, debilitating effect should not be surprising -- has had this institutionally debilitating effect and should be surprising since the court is not suited to the expansive role it has claimed for itself in the series of cases that began with Roe."

You will have many issues in front of you, many that we won't discuss here in front of this committee.

I think it unfortunate that we only narrow in on so few of the cases that you're likely to hear in front of you, and yet that's the nature of the day because they're the hot, political, heat-seeking cases.

You're undoubtedly qualified. You were cited by the ABA to be unanimously well-qualified.

I look forward to a thorough discussion and a hopeful approval of you to be able to join the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. Chairman...

SPECTER: Thank you very much, Senator Brownback.


Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK)

COBURN: Thank you.

Judge Alito, welcome.

I know you're tired of this and I'll try to be as brief as possible.

One of the advantages of going last is to be able to hear what everybody else has said.

COBURN: And as I've listened today, we've talked about the unfortunate, the frail. The quotes have been "fair shake for those that are underprivileged." We've heard "values, strong, free and fair, progressive judiciary." We've heard "the vulnerable, the more unvulnerable (sic), the weak, those who suffer." We've heard of an Alito mold that has to be in the mold of somebody else.

And as a practicing physician, the one disheartening thing that I hear is this very common word, this "right to choose" and how we sterilize that to not talk about what it really is.

I've had the unfortunate privilege of carrying over 300 women who've had complications from this wonderful right to choose to kill their unborn babies. And that's what it is: It's the right of convenience to take the life.

And the question that arises as we use all these adjectives and adverbs to describe our physicians as we approach a Supreme Court nominee is where are we in America when we decide that it's legal to kill our unborn children?

I mean, it's a real question for us. I debate honestly with those who disagree with me on this. It is a real issue, a measurement of our society, when we say it's fine to destroy unborn life who has a heartbeat at 16 days post-conception. Thirty-nine days post- conception you can measure the brain waves and there's pain felt.

The ripping and tearing of an unborn child from his mother's womb through the hands of another, and we say, "That's fine; you have a constitutional right to do that."

How is it that we have a right of privacy and due process to do that but you don't have the right, as rejected unanimously by the Supreme Court in 1997, to take your own life in assisted suicide?

COBURN: You know, how is it that we have sodomy protected under that due process but prostitution unprotected? It's schizophrenic. And the reason it's schizophrenic is there's no foundation for it whatsoever other than a falsely created foundation that is in error.

I don't know if we'll ever change that. It's a measure of our society.

But the fact is that you can't claim, in this Senate hearing, to care for those that are underprivileged, to those that are at risk, to those that are vulnerable, to those that are weak, to those that suffer and, at the same time, say I don't care about those who have been ripped from the wombs of women and the complications that have come about throughout that.

So, the debate, for the American public -- and the real debate here is about Roe.

We're going to go off in all sorts of directions, but the decisions that are going to be made on votes on the committee and the votes on the floor is going to be about Roe, whether or not we as a society have decided that this is an ethical process, that we have this convenient process that if we want to rationalize one moral choice with another, we just do it through abortion, this taking of the life, of life of an unborn child.

I asked Chief Justice Roberts about this definition of life -- you know, what is life? The Supreme Court can't figure it out or doesn't want us to figure it out; the fact that we know that there is no life if there's no heartbeat and brainwaves. We know that in every state and every territory. But when we have heartbeat and brain waves, we refuse to accept it as the presence of life -- this lack of logic of which we approach this issue because we like and we favor convenience over ethics. We favor convenience over the hard parts of life that actually make us grow.

Senator Brownback talked about those with disabilities that are destroyed in the womb because of a genetic test that is sometimes wrong. I would put forward that we all have disabilities.

Some of us, you just can't see it. And yet, who makes the decisions as to whether we're qualified or not?

COBURN: We've gone down a road to which we don't have the answers for. That's why we have the schizophrenic decisions coming out of the Supreme Court that don't balance logically with one versus another decision.

So my hope, is as we go through this process, let's not confuse it with the easy words and really be honest and straightforward about what this is about.

I firmly believe that the court should take another direction on many of these moral issues that face us. If we're to honor the heritage of our country, whether it be in terms of religious freedom, whether it be in terms of truly protecting life, protecting not just the unborn but who comes next, the infirm, the elderly, the maimed, the disabled -- that's who comes next as we get into the budget crunch of taking care of those people in the years -- I believe we ought to have that debate honest and openly.

But the fact is, is we're going to cover it with everything except the real fact is we've made a mistake going down that road in terms of saying we can destroy our unborn children and there's no consequences to it.

So I welcome you.

This is a difficult process for you and your family. I am hopeful that you will be treated fairly.

I'm very disturbed at the picture that was painted by Senator Kennedy that you're not a man of your word, that you're dishonest. The implication that you're not reliable I don't think is a fair characterization of what I've read.

And I look forward to you being able to giving answers, as you can, to your philosophy.

The real debate is we've had an activist court, and the American people don't want an activist court. And the real fear from those who might oppose you is that you'll bring the court back within a realm where the American people might want us to be with a Supreme Court; one that interprets the law, equal justice under the law, but not advancing without us advancing, the legislative body advancing, ahead of you.

I welcome you.

I return the balance of my time and I look forward for your introduction and your opening statement.

SPECTER: Thank you very much, Senator Coburn.


Judge Samuel Alito

SPECTER: They have sat patiently -- impatiently all day.

We may move the swearing in to the beginning of the ceremony in the future so they can all go out and do something productive.

(LAUGHTER)

But if you would raise your right hand.

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give before the Committee of the Judiciary of the United States Senate will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God.

ALITO: I do.

SPECTER: Thank you, Judge Alito. You may be seated.

And we welcome whatever opening comments if you care to make them.

ALITO: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am deeply honored to appear before you.

I am deeply honored to have been nominated for a position on the Supreme Court. And I an humbled to have been nominated for the seat that is now held by Justice O'Connor.

Justice O'Connor has been a pioneer, and her dedicated service on the Supreme Court will never be forgotten. And the people of the country certainly owe her a great debt for the service that she has provided.

I'm very thankful to the president for nominating me, and I'm also thankful to the members of this committee and many other senators who took time from their busy schedules to meet with me. That was a great honor for me, and I appreciate all of the courtesies that were extended to me during those visits.

And I want to thank the Senator Lautenberg and Governor Whitman for coming here today and for their kind introductions.

During the previous weeks, an old story about a lawyer who argued a case before the Supreme Court has come to my mind, and I thought I might begin this afternoon by sharing that story.

ALITO: The story goes as follows.

This was a lawyer who had never argued a case before the court before. And when the argument began, one of the justices said, "How did you get here?," meaning how had his case worked its way up through the court system. But the lawyer was rather nervous and he took the question literally and he said -- and this was some years ago -- he said, "I came here on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad."

This story has come to my mind in recent weeks because I have often asked myself, "How in the world did I get here?" And I want to try to answer that today and not by saying that I came here on I-95 or on Amtrak.

I am who I am, in the first place, because of my parents and because of the things that they taught me.

And I know from my own experience as a parent that parents probably teach most powerfully not through their words but through their deeds. And my parents taught me through the stories of their lives. And I don't take any credit for the things that they did or the things that they experienced, but they made a great impression on me.

My father was brought to this country as an infant. He lost his mother as a teenager. He grew up in poverty.

Although he graduated at the top of his high school class, he had no money for college. And he was set to work in a factory but, at the last minute, a kind person in the Trenton area arranged for him to receive a $50 scholarship and that was enough in those days for him to pay the tuition at a local college and buy one used suit. And that made the difference between his working in a factory and going to college.

After he graduated from college in 1935, in the midst of the Depression, he found that teaching jobs for Italian-Americans were not easy to come by and he had to find other work for a while.

But eventually he became a teacher and he served in the Pacific during World War II. And he worked, as has been mentioned, for many years in a nonpartisan position for the New Jersey legislature, which was an institution that he revered.

ALITO: His story is a story that is typical of a lot of Americans both back in his day and today. And it is a story, as far as I can see it, about the opportunities that our country offers, and also about the need for fairness and about hard work and perseverance and the power of a small good deed.

My mother is a first generation American. Her father worked in the Roebling Steel Mill in Trenton, New Jersey. Her mother came from a culture in which women generally didn't even leave the house alone, and yet my mother became the first person in her family to get a college degree.

She worked for more than a decade before marrying. She went to New York City to get a master's degree. And she continued to work as a teacher and a principal until she was forced to retire.

Both she and my father instilled in my sister and me a deep love of learning.

I got here in part because of the community in which I grew up. It was a warm, but definitely an unpretentious, down-to-earth community. Most of the adults in the neighborhood were not college graduates. I attended the public schools. In my spare time, I played baseball and other sports with my friends.

And I have happy memories and strong memories of those days and good memories of the good sense and the decency of my friends and my neighbors.

And after I graduated from high school, I went a full 12 miles down the road, but really to a different world when I entered Princeton University. A generation earlier, I think that somebody from my background probably would not have felt fully comfortable at a college like Princeton. But, by the time I graduated from high school, things had changed.

And this was a time of great intellectual excitement for me. Both college and law school opened up new worlds of ideas. But this was back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

ALITO: It was a time of turmoil at colleges and universities. And I saw some very smart people and very privileged people behaving irresponsibly. And I couldn't help making a contrast between some of the worst of what I saw on the campus and the good sense and the decency of the people back in my own community.

I'm here in part because of my experiences as a lawyer.

I had the good fortune to begin my legal career as a law clerk for a judge who really epitomized open-mindedness and fairness. He read the record in detail in every single case that came before me; he insisted on scrupulously following precedents, both the precedents of the Supreme Court and the decisions of his own court, the 3rd Circuit.

He taught all of his law clerks that every case has to be decided on an individual basis. And he really didn't have much use for any grand theories.

After my clerkship finished, I worked for more than a decade as an attorney in the Department of Justice.

And I can still remember the day, as an assistant U.S. attorney, when I stood up in court for the first time and I proudly said, "My name is Samuel Alito and I represent the United States in this court." It was a great honor for me to have the United States as my client during all of those years.

I have been shaped by the experiences of the people who are closest to me, by the things I've learned from Martha, by my hopes and my concerns for my children, Philip and Laura, by the experiences of members of my family, who are getting older, by my sister's experiences as a trial lawyer in a profession that has traditionally been dominated by men.

And, of course, I have been shaped for the last 15 years by my experiences as a judge of the court of appeals.

During that time, I have sat on thousands of cases -- somebody mentioned the exact figure this morning; I don't know what the exact figure is, but it is way up into the thousands -- and I have written hundreds of opinions.

And the members of this committee and the members of their staff, who have had the job of reviewing all of those opinions, really have my sympathy.

(LAUGHTER)

I think that may have constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

(LAUGHTER)

I've learned a lot during my years on the 3rd Circuit, particularly, I think, about the way in which a judge should go about the work of judging. I've learned by doing, by sitting on all of these cases. And I think I've also learned from the examples of some really remarkable colleagues.

When I became a judge, I stopped being a practicing attorney. And that was a big change in role.

The role of a practicing attorney is to achieve a desirable result for the client in the particular case at hand. But a judge can't think that way. A judge can't have any agenda, a judge can't have any preferred outcome in any particular case and a judge certainly doesn't have a client.

The judge's only obligation -- and it's a solemn obligation -- is to the rule of law. And what that means is that in every single case, the judge has to do what the law requires.

Good judges develop certain habits of mind. One of those habits of mind is the habit of delaying reaching conclusions until everything has been considered.

Good judges are always open to the possibility of changing their minds based on the next brief that they read, or the next argument that's made by an attorney who's appearing before them, or a comment that is made by a colleague during the conference on the case when the judges privately discuss the case.

It's been a great honor for me to spend my career in public service. It has been a particular honor for me to serve on the court of appeals for these past 15 years, because it has given me the opportunity to use whatever talent I have to serve my country by upholding the rule of law.

And there is nothing that is more important for our republic than the rule of law. No person in this country, no matter how high or powerful, is above the law, and no person in this country is beneath the law.

Fifteen years ago, when I was sworn in as a judge of the court of appeals, I took an oath. I put my hand on the Bible and I swore that I would administer justice without respect to persons, that I would do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I would carry out my duties under the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

And that is what I have tried to do to the very best of my ability for the past 15 years. And if I am confirmed, I pledge to you that that is what I would do on the Supreme Court.

Thank you.

SPECTER: Thank you very much, Judge Alito, for those opening comments.