SUPREME COURT Alito moves closer to approval

Confirmation seems all but assured.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- The Senate Judiciary Committee moved Samuel Alito one step closer to a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court on Tuesday, where he could immediately shift the court's stance on high-profile issues such as abortion, the death penalty, religion and executive power.
Yet it is Alito's vision of judicial restraint and a limited role for courts -- a vision he shares with new Chief Justice John G. Roberts -- that could produce an even more fundamental change in the high court.
Together, the two are likely to bring a narrow and lawyerly approach to deciding cases that, if persuasive, could help remove the justices from some of the high-profile political squabbles that now define them.
"Overall, I think the court could appear a lot less political with these two new justices, and that's a good thing," said Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and a constitutional scholar. "Both Roberts and Alito seem to feel that courts are most effective and respected when they operate within a limited role, rather than seeking to intrude into a lot of other contexts."
Cambridge University professor and court expert David Garrow agreed.
"Neither has much of an appetite for grand declarations," he said of Roberts and Alito. "Once you get away from the left-right spectrum that everyone views the court in, I think you see them having a very different kind of effect on things."
Partisan campaigns
Alito's confirmation hearings were hard fought in the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month and inspired bitterly partisan campaigns on both sides, but his confirmation seems all but assured after the committee voted Tuesday to move debate to the Senate floor.
The 10-8 party vote portends an equally partisan outcome in the full Senate and one of the slimmest confirmation margins since Clarence Thomas got 52 votes in 1991.
Judiciary Committee Republicans applauded Alito's experience and intellect and complained that Democrats were judging Alito only on ideological grounds. Democrats said Alito didn't deserve their votes because as a conservative jurist he would alter the balance of the court.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the political split on Alito's nomination illustrated a dramatic shift since liberal-leaning jurists such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer won confirmation to the court with overwhelming bipartisan votes.
"What's going on in the Judge Alito nomination, I think, is not advising and consenting. It's more about politics," Graham said. "We're jockeying for the next election. And over time we'll erode the quality of the judiciary."
Without question, Alito's presence could have an immediate impact on many attention-grabbing issues as the high court. And because his outlook is markedly different from retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's, his vote could be crucial.
Different viewpoint
Alito won't likely see the partial-birth abortion ban the same way O'Connor did in 2000, when she cast the deciding vote to strike it down because it lacked a health exception.
Alito's strong First Amendment leanings could also lead him to see campaign regulations differently from O'Connor. This spring, the court will decide whether Vermont can limit not only campaign contributions, but also expenditures by candidates in statewide races.
Alito has also been particularly loath to overturn death sentences as an appellate judge, while O'Connor has been key to the court's ongoing review of capital punishment standards. This term alone, the court is considering several death penalty cases.