Alito Remains Unruffled in Testy Hearings

WASHINGTON —  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.

As Graham continued with an apology to the family, she left the hearing room to compose herself.

“Judge Alito, I am sorry that you’ve had to go through this. I am sorry that your family has had to sit here and listen to this,” Graham said.

The moment -- captured on television although unnoticed by many in the hearing room -- capped a day of mounting tension as Democrats grilled Alito on what have become the hearing’s two focal issues: his views on abortion and his membership in the now-defunct Concerned Alumni of Princeton.

Alito, 55, sat placidly through it all, repeating -- with little apparent irritation -- responses that did not placate his critics. But the attacks by Democrats did no apparent damage to Alito among Senate Republicans, most of whom have expressed support for him.

The federal appellate judge seems headed for confirmation by the GOP-controlled Senate unless Democrats mount a filibuster against him -- which appears unlikely at the moment.

On his second day of questioning, Alito continued to resist answering whether the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationwide, should be considered “settled law.”

On the alumni group, Alito repeatedly insisted that he could not remember joining it and could not explain why he put it on a job application when applying for a promotion within the Justice Department in 1985, when Ronald Reagan was president.

“As I’ve said, I don’t have a recollection of having anything to do” with the group, Alito said. “So all I can say is that I put it down in the ’85 form, and therefore I must have been a member at around that time.”

Alito, a graduate of Princeton University, listed his membership in the group when asked to provide information about his “philosophical commitment to the policies of [the Reagan] administration.”

The group, founded in 1972, was controversial because some of its members publicly opposed Princeton’s efforts to increase its numbers of female and minority students. They argued that such efforts could result in the admission of some students who did not meet the school’s standards.

Questions about Alito’s link to the group moved front and center during Wednesday’s hearing in part because it appeared to crystallize for Democrats why they say they can’t trust assurances by Alito that, as a high court justice, he would keep an open mind on politically controversial legal disputes.

Giving his take on Alito’s mention of the group on his job application, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters: “In this situation, Alito was trying to establish his credentials with the Reagan administration. He was providing red meat for the right wing.”

Other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee said they were unconvinced that someone of Alito’s acumen could have forgotten details about the group.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) complained that in his view, Alito’s answers on the issue “don’t add up.”

Kennedy displayed a series of placards featuring quotes from articles in the group’s magazine, Prospect, that disparaged minorities, gays and disabled people. The senator asked Alito whether he endorsed such views.

“I’ve testified to everything that I can recall relating to this, and I do not recall knowing any of these things” about the organization, Alito said. “And many of the things that you’ve mentioned are things that I have always stood against.”

Alito said he could not recall whether he joined the group when he graduated from the university in 1972 or if he did so later, in the 1980s. He said he believed he could only have become a member for one reason: to fight against any effort to disband the school’s ROTC program, in which he had participated as an undergraduate.

The emotional moment involving Martha Alito occurred in the late afternoon, after Graham charged that Democrats were pursuing a strategy of “guilt by association.”

“How have you lived your life? Are you a closet bigot?” Graham asked.

“I’m not any kind of a bigot; I’m not,” Alito replied calmly.

Graham began to list people who had praised Alito, including other judges and former colleagues. As he spoke, Martha Alito slowly began to cry. By the time Graham apologized for the strain of the hearings on Alito’s family, she was gathering her things to leave the room.

After a few minutes in a back room, Martha Alito returned to the hearing for the rest of the session.

“The pressure of all this, and the insult added to injury, just got to be too much,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said.

Earlier, the Democratic focus on Concerned Alumni of Princeton prompted one of the day’s dust-ups between committee members.

Kennedy asked Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the panel’s chairman, to subpoena the personal papers of one of the group’s founders, which are at the Library of Congress.

“I’d move that the committee go into executive session for the ... sole purpose for issuing the subpoena of those records,” Kennedy said.

Specter expressed surprise, saying that despite Kennedy’s assertion that he had sent him a letter about the documents, this was the first time he was aware of the issue.

“I take umbrage at your telling me what I received,” Specter said. “I don’t mind your telling me what you mailed. But there’s a big difference between what’s mailed and what’s received.”

Kennedy did not back down, telling Specter that if his subpoena request was denied, “You’re going to hear it again and again and again, and we’re going to have votes of this committee again and again and again until we have a resolution.”

Specter snapped back: “I’m not going to have you run this committee and decide when we’re going to go into executive session.”

In the end, the confrontation over the documents fizzled. During lunch, Senate staff members contacted the group’s founder, William A. Rusher, who granted them permission to review the documents. The aides were poring through them late into the evening, searching for mentions of Alito.

As the tone of Democrats’ questions grew more caustic Wednesday, Republicans suggested they were acting in desperation.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) told Alito: “You’re the quarterback and your team is way ahead here. And opponents are very desperate, trying to sack you, and aren’t doing a very good job of it. And they haven’t hit you all day now -- for two days.”

He added: “You’re going to keep getting these last-minute Hail Marys thrown at you. So just bear with us.”

Alito’s 1985 job application also figured into the sparring about abortion. In seeking his promotion, which he received, Alito wrote that he disagreed with the Roe vs. Wade decision that abortion rights were protected by the Constitution.

On Tuesday, Alito had said that as a high court justice, he would keep an open mind on the issue. But he resisted efforts by Democrats to get him to agree that the Roe vs. Wade decision was “settled law.”

The parrying over that continued Wednesday, with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asking: “You do not agree that it is well-settled in court?”

“I think that depends on what one means by the term ‘well-settled,’ ” Alito responded. He then went on to discuss the importance of a judge reviewing all sides in a case.

Feinstein interrupted to note that he had provided more expansive answers on other subjects, including some currently before the Supreme Court.

“I have a hard time understanding why you separate out Roe,” she said, and then backtracked.

“I understand why. If you say one thing, you upset my friends and colleagues on [the Republican] side. If you say the other, you upset those of us on this side. But the people are entitled to know.”

Alito replied: “I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to speak about issues that could realistically come up” before the Supreme Court.

“OK, I’ll let you off the hook on that one,” Feinstein said.

Committee questioning is to continue today, followed by testimony from outside witnesses, including friends and associates of the nominee.