The U.S. Senate confirmed Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court Jan. 31, making him the 110th justice to serve on the country’s top judicial panel. Four Democrats joined with all but one Republican to confirm Alito in a 58-42 vote.
Samuel AlitoAlito, 55, was sworn in during an afternoon ceremony at the Supreme Court. Alito immediately replaced Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who had announced her retirement in July but had continued to serve on the court until her successor was confirmed.
Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island was the lone Republican to vote against Alito. The Democrats who supported confirmation were Sens. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.
Alito’s confirmation provides President Bush with two successful nominees to the high court in barely four months’ time. The Senate confirmed John Roberts as chief justice Sept. 29 in a 78-22 vote.
Though Roberts and Alito appear to share a judicial philosophy focused on applying the original intent of the Constitution, the opposition to Alito was more pronounced, largely because of the kind of justice he was chosen to replace. While Roberts replaced a conservative, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Alito was nominated to replace O’Connor, a swing voter who often sided with the court’s liberals on such contentious issues as abortion and church-state relations.
The addition of Alito, who has established a reputation for judicial restraint in 15 years on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, boosts the hopes of pro-life advocates and other social conservatives that the nine-member court may begin to move away from what they consider as its mostly liberal direction in recent decades.
Alito’s presence, however, will not change the high court’s support for Roe v. Wade, the 1973 opinion legalizing abortion, unless a current justice changes his vote. Even without O’Connor, the Supreme Court has five justices who have endorsed Roe.
Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, called it “a great day for all Americans who cherish our constitutional form of government, with its checks and balances to guard against any one branch of the federal government gaining too much power over Americans’ lives.
“Tens of millions of Americans, and I would include myself in that number, have been extremely anguished about the increasingly, some would say unconstitutionally, powerful role of the Supreme Court over the last four decades,” Land told Baptist Press. “Increasingly, the Supreme Court felt no compunction about striking down laws passed by the people’s representatives in Congress and the state legislatures that offended their personal sense of right and wrong, as opposed to interpreting the Constitution.
“Today, a giant step has been made toward restoring the constitutional balance of powers envisioned by the founders of our nation,” Land said.