Tempers flare in Alito hearings

WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito was aggressively questioned Wednesday by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who accused him of inconsistencies dealing with issues ranging from voting rights to ethics to his membership in a conservative organization.\nOn the third day of confirmation hearings, Democrats also expressed frustration as Alito described the landmark 1973 ruling legalizing abortion as "an important precedent" but declined to echo Chief Justice John Roberts, who has called it settled law.\nRepublicans on the panel dismissed the criticism and defended Alito, President Bush's choice to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, as a conservative jurist with a solid 15-year record on the federal appeals court.\n"Your critics are grasping at any straw to tarnish your record," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.\nRepublicans hold the majority in the Senate -- 55-44 with one independent -- and Alito is expected to win confirmation to the high court when the Senate votes later this month. The Democrats' only hope of scuttling the nomination rests with defections among the GOP ranks and solid opposition among its own members.\n"A number of us have been troubled by what we see as inconsistencies in some of the answers," Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont, the panel's ranking Democrat, told Alito.\nSen. Richard Durbin of \nIllinois cited Alito's testimony Tuesday in which he said he would have an open mind if faced with the question of abortion on the Supreme Court. The senator said the nominee's writings and testimony suggested otherwise, with "a mind that sadly is closed in some instances."\nChief Justice Roberts described Roe v. Wade, the 1973 abortion ruling, as settled law at his confirmation hearings in 2003 for the appeals court and "settled as precedent" in testimony at his Supreme Court confirmation hearings last year. Alito said the ruling "is an important precedent of the Supreme Court," but he declined Durbin's repeated prodding to use the term "settled law."\nOn the Republican side, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas said some Supreme Court decisions are indefensible and invite reconsideration. The court, Brownback said, had revisited some 200 cases for that very reason.\n"Some precedents are undeserving of respect," he told Alito.\nLeahy listed several concerns, among them Alito's comments on the principle of one-man, one-vote and his inability to recall details about his membership -- which he listed on a Reagan administration job application -- in a conservative organization that opposed the admission of women and minorities to Princeton University, Alito's alma mater.\nDemocrats also voiced concern about Alito's answers regarding whether he told the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals he should not be hearing cases involving investment company Vanguard. He holds six-figure investments with Vanguard.\nAlito promised the Judiciary Committee at his 1990 confirmation hearing as an appellate judge that he would remove himself from cases that presented a conflict of interest. He said his participation in a 2002 Vanguard case was an oversight, although he also said he didn't do anything wrong. The American Bar Association and his supporters have accepted that explanation.\nAlito again said he had no recollection of membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, the conservative group that he listed on a job application.\nThe questions about the group led to a testy exchange between Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa. Last month, Kennedy sent a letter to Specter seeking a committee subpoena for private documents of William A. Rusher, a founder of the group, that Kennedy said might shed light on Alito's membership. Specter said he had not received the letter and bristled at Kennedy's pledge to push repeatedly for a committee vote on a subpoena.\n"I will not have you run this committee," said Specter, who brushed aside Kennedy's threats.