Alito expected to be approved for full Senate vote today

The U.S. Senate's Judiciary Committee is scheduled to decide today whether Samuel Alito, Bush's nominee for Supreme Court associate justice, will be voted on by all members of the Senate.\nThe committee is expected to vote in favor of Alito on a party line vote. All 10 Republicans announced their support of the nominee and eight Democrats are expected to vote against his confirmation, according to The Associated Press. After the committee vote, the debate will go to the Senate floor, where the GOP holds a majority with 55 senators. \nDuring last week's Congressional hearings, Democrats pressed Alito on traditionally important issues for a Supreme Court nominee such as abortion, but because of the recent disclosure of Bush's controversial wiretapping program, executive power became one of the most important issues at the hearing.\nDuring the hearings, Alito was vague about how he might rule on these issues, said law professor Craig Bradley. But, Bradley added, that is how Supreme Court nominees should act because they are not supposed to reveal how they will rule on a case. After judges are confirmed to the Supreme Court, they sometimes turn out to be much different than expected, he said. \nIU law professor Dawn Johnsen said it is widely agreed that Alito will move the court to the right because he will be replacing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is considered a moderate and was the crucial swing vote on many issues.\nBradley agreed.\n"The signs are certainly that he will be one of the relatively conservative members of the court," Bradley said.\nSenate Democrats could still filibuster Alito, but that is an unlikely event, said law professor Charles Geyh. \n"(The filibuster) is a risky gambit," Geyh said. "By filibustering, the Democrats look like they are obstructing the majority. In a democratic society the popular notion is that the majority rules."\nThe Democrats must explain to the public how Alito could hurt America and in "a time of soundbites" that is hard to do with complicated topics like executive power, Geyh added.\nThe wiretapping program could come before the Supreme Court, and Alito would be more likely to vote for it than O'Connor would have been, Johnsen said.\n"That is one of the areas when the presence of Judge Alito would be significant because he would be more likely to defer to presidential power," Bradley said.\nAlito's view of executive power could have more impact than just the wiretapping program. Johnsen said Alito gave a speech in front of the Federalist Society where he endorsed the unitary executive theory which gives the president an extraordinary amount of power.\n"The question is whether the president has the power to violate federal laws," Johnsen said.\nAnother major issue for Alito is abortion. It is unlikely that the core of Roe v. Wade will be overturned because five justices currently sitting on the Supreme Court have voted for abortion rights in the past. But instead of "explicitly" overturning Roe, Alito could "implicity" do the same thing, Johnsen said, by incrementally adding more restrictions.\nWhile working for the Reagan administration, Alito wrote a memo that said the best way to overturn Roe would be that incremental method because that could be even more dangerous than overturning Roe would be, because the public would not realize it is happening, Johnsen said.\nAlito's confirmation could further divide the nation, Johnsen said. Conservatives who want to overturn past rulings could start to bring cases in front of the Court because they think Alito will vote in their favor, she added. \n"Alito is someone who has long been on the short list of the conservative right," Geyh said. "In some ways he is symbolic (of the conservative right) whether he deserves it or not"