10/31/2005
By Jerry Filteau
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- If Judge Samuel Alito Jr. is confirmed as a
U.S. Supreme Court justice, it would be the first time in history
that the majority of justices on the nation's highest court are
Catholic.
President George W. Bush Oct. 31 nominated Alito, a former U.S.
attorney in New Jersey and for the past 15 years a judge on the
Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He is widely
regarded as a strong conservative on an appellate court that is
considered among the most liberal in the country.
The 55-year-old judge is likely to face strong Democratic
opposition because on the appellate court he opined that it was
constitutional to require wives to notify their husbands before
having an abortion. That opinion came as a minority dissent in
Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, a landmark case contesting
Pennsylvania's 1989 Abortion Control Act.
The Supreme Court in 1992 upheld most of the Pennsylvania law but
agreed with the appeals court majority in striking down the spousal
notification provision. In the Supreme Court's ruling the late
Chief Justice William Rehnquist quoted Alito in his dissent against
striking down the spousal notification portion of the law.
On the other hand, in 2000 Alito joined in a ruling striking down a
New Jersey partial-birth abortion law as unconstitutional. In his
concurring opinion he said Supreme Court precedents required a
health exception for the mother to make the law
constitutional.
In a case of church-state interest, Alito wrote the majority
opinion of the appellate court in ACLU vs. Schundler, upholding a
New Jersey city's holiday display that included a Nativity scene
and menorah, on the grounds that it also displayed secular symbols
including Frosty the Snowman.
In another religion-related case, he ruled in 1999 that the Newark,
N.J., police department could not bar Muslim police officers from
wearing beards for religious reasons, since the city permitted
other officers to wear beards for medical reasons.
If confirmed, Alito would be the 11th Catholic in U.S. history to
sit on the Supreme Court and would become the fifth Catholic
justice on the current court, forming for the first time a majority
of Catholics on the nine-member court.
Other Catholics currently on the nation's highest bench are
recently appointed Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin
Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
Past Catholics on the Supreme Court included two other chief
justices, Roger Taney, 1836-64, and Edward White, a justice from
1894 to 1910 and chief justice, 1910-21. Other former Catholic
justices were Joseph McKenna, Pierce Butler, Frank Murphy and
William Brennan Jr.
Alito was named to take the place of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor,
who last summer announced her plans to retire as soon as a
successor is confirmed.
In his nomination speech Bush called Alito "one of the most
accomplished and respected judges in America."
The nomination came just four days after White House counsel
Harriet Miers, who had been nominated Oct. 3 to succeed O'Connor,
withdrew her name under heavy fire from conservative groups who
form the core of Bush's political support. They were concerned that
she had no court track record to back administration claims that
she would bring a conservative judicial philosophy to the
bench.
Alito could face the opposite problem. Observers believe that if
Democratic Senators judge him too conservative their shaky
political agreement to avoid minority filibusters to block judicial
appointments could break down.
The day before Alito's nomination Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.,
chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, expressed fears of a
filibuster by Democrats if they oppose a nominee's position on
abortion. "The topic which dominates the discussion, as we all
know, is a woman's right to choose," he said.
Alito was born April 1, 1950, in Trenton, N.J. His late father,
Samuel Alito Sr., was an Italian immigrant. His mother, Rose, who
turns 91 later this year, was a public school teacher.
After graduating from Princeton University, he attended Yale Law
School, where he was editor of the Yale Law Journal and earned his
law degree in 1976.
After a year clerking for U.S. 3rd Circuit Judge Leonard Garth,
Alito spent four years as assistant U.S. attorney for the District
of New Jersey. He went on to become assistant to the U.S. solicitor
general in 1981, deputy assistant U.S. attorney general in 1985 and
U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey in 1987.
He was only 39 when he was appointed to the federal appeals court
in 1990. Bush said that with 15 years on that court Alito "has more
prior judicial experience than any Supreme Court nominee in more
than 70 years."
Alito's wife, Martha, was a law librarian when they met. They have
two children: a son, Philip, in college and a daughter, Laura, in
high school.
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops