Alito Hearings: What Dems Will Focus On

By David Brody
Capitol Hill Correspondent

CBN.com –WASHINGTON - Samuel Alito's Supreme Court hearings got underway Monday, but today is when Democrats will really start to grill him.

The swearing in was the easy part for Alito. Now comes a long day of hard-hitting questions from Democrats, starting with abortion.

The judge wrote on a Reagan administration job application 20 years ago that there is no constitutional right to an abortion, giving way to the liberals’ concern that he may vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Republican Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) said that is what this hearing is really all about.

Coburn said, "We're going to go off in all sorts of directions, but decisions that are going to be made on votes on the committee and the votes on the floor are going to be about Roe."

But Democrats say it is more than that. They are concerned about Alito's expansive views on presidential powers.

"In an era where the White House is abusing power, is excusing and authorizing torture and is spying on American citizens,” said Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), “I find Judge Alito's support for an all-powerful executive branch to be genuinely troubling."

Alito stayed above the partisan bickering, instead outlining his role as a judge. He said, “A judge can't have any agenda. A judge can't have any preferred outcome in any particular case… Good judges are always open to the possibility of changing their minds, based on the next brief that they read, or the next argument that's made by an attorney."

The Democrats are going to face an uphill battle all week long during this confirmation hearing. Already, a majority of Americans support Alito, so the Democrats best bet here may be to try and rattle Alito, to ask him tough questions and try to make him squirm for answers.

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