BREAKING :: SCOTUS Nominee Samuel Alito Jr. ¶ Judge “Scalito”

Bush to Nominate Alito to Supreme Court

WASHINGTON – President Bush will nominate Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, The Associated Press has learned, choosing a long-time federal judge embraced by judicial conservatives to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Bush plans to announce the nomination at 8 a.m. EST, the officials said.

The choice likely will mend a rift in the Republican Party caused by his failed nomination of Harriet Miers.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to preview Bush’s remarks, said Alito was virtually certain to get the nod from the moment Miers backed out. The 55-year-old jurist was Bush’s favorite choice of the judges in the last set of deliberations but he settled instead on someone outside what he calls the “judicial monastery,” the officials said.

Bush believes that Alito has not only the right experience and conservative ideology for the job, but he also has a temperament suited to building consensus on the court. A former prosecutor, Alito has experience off the bench that factored into Bush’s thinking, the officials said.

● Samuel Alito Jr. Biography links

There’s a nickname for federal appeals Judge Samuel Alito Jr. that captures two things at once — his particular brand of legal conservatism and a recognition that his credentials are strong enough to put him on any Republican president’s short-list for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Some lawyers call the judge “Scalito.”

Roughly translated, the nickname means “Little Scalia,” suggesting that Alito, a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, has modeled himself after Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

With Alito in President George W. Bush’s sights as a possible high court nominee, the question is whether he can both overcome the nickname and somehow live up to it.

In some ways, the Scalito moniker hits the mark. In his 13 years on the 3rd Circuit, Alito has earned his stripes as a strong and intelligent voice on the growing conservative wing of a court once considered among the country’s most liberal. As with Scalia, lawyers say that Alito’s vote is easy to predict in highly charged cases.

Law.com read on »»

President Bush today will nominate 3rd Circuit Appeals Court Judge Samuel Alito to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court, sources tell CNN. Alito is a former U.S. Attorney who has been a judge for 15 years. Bush is expected to announce the nomination at 8 a.m. ET (1300 GMT)

Judge from NJ tops list
BY TOM BRUNE

Appeals court jurist, often compared to Scalia, leads nominees, according to conservative activists

WASHINGTON October 31, 2005 — Judge Samuel Alito of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in New Jersey is emerging as a leading candidate to be the next nominee for the Supreme Court, conservative activists said yesterday.

Alito, 55, a conservative sometimes called “Scalito” because his record is similar to that of Justice Antonin Scalia, would win support from the right but Democrats and liberal activists have long said he would run into tough Democratic opposition.

Alito, on the appellate court since 1990, would be a popular choice with conservatives. When the significant abortion case called Planned Parenthood v. Casey came before the Third Circuit, Alito wrote the lone dissent in favor of certain state restrictions on abortion.

But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) warned that a nomination of Alito, or any other candidates too far to the right, could run into trouble. “This is not one of the names I’ve suggested to the president,” Reid said yesterday of Alito on CNN’s “Late Edition. In fact, I’ve done the opposite,” he said. “I think it would create a lot of problems.”

Newsday read on »»

Bush to Name “Scalia-like” Alito ◊ by susanhu
Mon Oct 31st, 2005 at 03:24:33 AM PST

Talk about “being careful what we wish for.” This nomination, unlike Miers, will solidify Bush’s base, which he will need on his side in order to thwart fall-out from the CIA leak case.

Samuel Alita, of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, will be nominated Monday by the White House. “Alito, 55, is considered a conservative in the mold of Justice Antonin Scalia.” (Reuters)

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said Sunday that Alito’s nomination would “create a lot of problems.” AP

While Alito is expected to win praise from Bush’s allies on the right, Democrats have served notice that his nomination would spark a partisan brawl.

CNNi just reported that Harry Reid didn’t receive the “courtesy call” from the White House until CNN and others had already been reporting Alita’s nomination.