As Samuel Alito moves a step closer toward confirmation to the Supreme Court - and in all likelihood an affirmative vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday - Republicans have released some valuable talking points.
Here's a sampling of what's being stressed about Alito:
- Republicans have tried to ensure a dignified confirmation process, but we are concerned that Democrats are politicizing the process and degrading qualified nominees. During the hearings Senate Democrats tried to tarnish Judge Alito’s 35 years of dedicated federal service, but they failed.
- The confirmation process should be about qualifications, but Democrats have made it about politics. Judicial nominees are not politicians running on a platform – the job of a judge is to strictly interpret the law regardless of personal ideology.
- Judge Alito is among the most qualified and responsive Supreme Court nominees in history – he approached each question with an open mind and explained what factors he would consider when ruling on cases. As all nominees should, he was careful not to answer questions that would require him to pre-judge cases, but still answered more than 650 questions in 18 hours of testimony.
- His integrity, temperament and fair-mindedness are unquestioned (ABA gold-standard rating of unanimously well qualified, endorsement of 7 federal judges).
- We are concerned that Democratic leaders are working to artificially suppress Judge Alito’s vote for election-year politicking – that sets a dangerous precedent.
- Republicans have never suppressed votes for Democratic nominees – we gave Clinton nominees Justice Ginsburg or Justice Breyer big votes even though we disagreed with them on many issues.
- The process is broken and needs to be fixed, or we will lose our most qualified candidates. Judge Alito should receive a prompt, up-or-down vote on the floor.
