Samuel A Jr Alito

Senate Democrats are considering a plan that could delay a committee vote on Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s Supreme Court nomination for at least a week, slowing what could have been a quick confirmation for President Bush's pick to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) had hoped to hold a committee vote on Alito's nomination Jan. 17, a little over a week from Monday's start of the federal appellate judge's confirmation hearings.

Twenty years ago, a Reagan administration lawyer proposed that when the president signed a bill passed by Congress, he should use the occasion to declare how he interpreted it. "The president's understanding of the bill should be just as important as that of Congress," wrote Samuel A. Alito Jr. in a 1986 memo. Spelling out those thoughts "would increase the power of the executive to shape the law," he added.

Republicans and Democrats agree about little in Washington these days, but they concur on this: The confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr., which open today, will be utterly unlike those for John G. Roberts Jr. For one, the nominee is different. Roberts was smooth and youthful-looking, with charmingly fidgety children and just two years on the federal bench.

Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's choice for a closely divided Supreme Court, began his Senate confirmation hearings Monday by attempting to assure skeptical Democrats that he is not an ideological conservative with an expansive view of the powers of the presidency. But Democrats pointedly put him on notice that he would be questioned aggressively about his views, particularly on the right to abortion and the president's claim to sweeping authority as commander in chief.

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. sought to distance himself Tuesday from conservative political opinions he expressed more than 20 years ago, stressing in his confirmation hearing that good judges did not allow personal views to color their legal judgments. But his comments were greeted with skepticism by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who said Alito's views as a Reagan administration lawyer probably signaled how he would rule as a justice -- especially on abortion.

Democrats resembled a guerrilla army searching for a weak point in a heavily guarded fortress Tuesday as they challenged Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. at his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. The array of issues Democrats raised reflected the breadth of their concerns about the record of Alito, President Bush's choice to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Senate Democrats turned up the heat on Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. on Wednesday, prompting testy exchanges during his confirmation hearing and ardent defenses from Republicans -- one of which moved Alito's wife to tears. As Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) defended the nominee against what he said were unfair insinuations about his membership in a conservative alumni organization, Martha Alito began quietly to weep behind him.

Abortion remains the unbridgeable divide in American politics and constitutional law, a fact that was on display during the third day of Senate hearings on the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court. For much of the day Wednesday, Alito -- who would probably cast the deciding vote on several pending abortion cases -- was a silent witness as senators told him why the Supreme Court should preserve or reverse its abortion rulings.

In 1972, at the height of one of the most tumultuous times in higher education, a group of Princeton University graduates staged their own form of protest against the changes they saw around them. As college campuses roiled with demonstrations over the Vietnam War, feminism and free speech, Concerned Alumni of Princeton -- co-chaired by wealthy alumni from the classes of 1921 and 1930 -- had a narrower agenda: fighting the admissions policy that opened classrooms to women and minorities.

With typical Midwestern bluntness, Sen. Charles E. Grassley seemed to say it all when he summed up the state of play on Day 3 of the Senate committee hearing on the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court. "We've gone over the same ground many times," the Iowa Republican said. "The horse is dead. Quit beating it."