WASHINGTON — Energizing his conservative supporters, President Bush on Monday named Samuel A. Alito Jr., a federal appeals court judge with a 15-year record on the bench, to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Alito was immediately embraced by Republicans who had parted company with Bush over the ill-fated nomination of White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers, who withdrew last week after it became clear that her prospects for confirmation were shaky.
"This moves the court to a more conservative tilt, no doubt about it," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a Christian legal foundation, and a key White House advisor on judicial appointments. "Justice O'Connor was the swing vote on a lot of cases, and she sometimes swung in the other direction."
But Bush's choice of a candidate with a more certain conservative philosophy set the stage for a confrontation with Senate Democrats, who fear that Alito will move the high court further to the right on key issues -- particularly abortion rights.
"We need to be careful here," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, which screens judicial candidates. "This is a nominee who could shift the balance of the court, and thus the laws of the nation, for decades to come."
Bush, who introduced Alito during a brief morning ceremony in the White House residential quarters, said he chose the 55-year-old jurist because his record indicated that he shared the president's view of the "proper role" of federal judges.
"He understands that judges are to interpret the laws, not to impose their preferences or priorities on the people," Bush said.
Alito, who worked as a Justice Department lawyer and a U.S. attorney before being named to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in 1990, promised Bush that, if confirmed, he would interpret the Constitution and laws "with care and restraint, always keeping in mind the limited role that the courts play in our constitutional system."
One antiabortion group, Operation Rescue, predicted that Alito's confirmation would put the high court "on the fast track to derailing Roe v. Wade as the law of the land," referring to the landmark 1973 decision that affirmed a woman's right to choose abortion.
But legal scholars and court observers said it was not clear how Alito might rule if a case that could overturn Roe vs. Wade came before the high court -- or whether a majority of the nine justices would vote to overturn if Alito chose to do so.
