WASHINGTON — Twenty-five years ago, President Reagan came to Washington with bold plans to move the Supreme Court to the right.
He and his lawyers wanted a high court that would uphold state laws that impose the death penalty, restrict abortion and allow a greater role for religion in public life. They favored property rights over environmental regulation, states' rights over broad federal authority and executive power over Congress and the federal courts.
Now, with the Senate about to confirm Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., a second generation of Reagan disciples stands ready to fulfill the former president's vision for the court.
Senators voted 72 to 25 Monday to cut off debate and end a filibuster against Alito's confirmation, and are expected to approve him today as President Bush's second Supreme Court appointee.
Alito, like Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., was drawn to the conservative ethos of the Reagan administration in the 1980s. Both men worked in Reagan's Justice Department and as advocates for the administration before the Supreme Court.
This year, both were promoted for the high court by a network of former Reagan lawyers, including his onetime attorney general, Edwin M. Meese III, who hold influence with the Bush White House. And some of Reagan's former advisors see the elevation of Roberts and Alito as the culmination of a long drive to put Reagan's conservative stamp on the high court.
"It is a matter of enormous pride to see two of our colleagues become Supreme Court justices," said Charles J. Cooper, a Washington lawyer who hired Alito for a key Justice Department post in 1986. "The Reagan administration was very deliberate in trying to promote bright, ambitious young conservatives. And this is in many respects the fulfillment of that effort."
Despite the passage of time, the conservatives' agenda for the high court remains remarkably the same. They want a court that will uphold restrictions on abortion, permit religious displays such as the Ten Commandments on public property and give police and prosecutors a freer hand to enforce criminal laws.
Equally important is what the court does not do. Social conservatives are hopeful that the Roberts court will not interpret the Constitution in a way that would create a right to same-sex marriage or forbid the use of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
