IU professors say Alito fight will get rough

In a swift change of direction from his nomination of Harriet Miers, President Bush announced Monday veteran appellate judge Samuel Alito Jr. as his nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. \nAlito, 55, has served as a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since 1990 and has a strong conservative track record. In 1992, Alito voiced his support for spousal notification in abortions as the lone dissenter in the landmark case Planned Parenthood v. Casey.\nWith Alito's nomination, a political dogfight is expected -- one that has been anticipated since Bush's election in 2000 and was absent in Chief Justice John Roberts' proceedings.\n"It's going to provoke a fight," said IU law professor Charles Geyh. "I say with absolute confidence it will be ugly."\nGiven the 55-member Republican majority, Senate Democrats would likely need to mount a filibuster to prevent Alito's confirmation. \nExperts say a filibuster could be damaging to Democrats, giving Senate Republicans ammunition for the upcoming midterm elections.\n"This nomination threatens Americans' cherished constitutional rights and liberties," IU law professor Dawn Johnsen said in a statement. "If confirmed, Alito unquestionably would move the court dramatically to the right."\nSome have dubbed the nominee "Scalito" for his political likeness to conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, but IU law professor Joseph Hoffmann said such an assessment is not completely true.\n"I don't see Alito looking a lot like Scalia in terms of his judicial temperament," Hoffmann said. "He seems to be a much more judicious conservative, at least on the surface, than Scalia."\nHoffmann said many of Alito's opinions reflect a temperate, moderate and cautious opinion. He pointed out that in the Casey decision, Alito's dissent was very respectful of the majority opinion.\n"If you read his opinion, he expressly bases that view on the fact that the law had exceptions built in," Hoffmann said.\nHe added that one of those exceptions to the law is a wife not forced to notify her spouse if she fears for her well-being.\n"That's a very different opinion than what you would expect from Scalia on that issue," he said.\nHoffmann and fellow law professor Joseph Bradley acknowledged the stark contrast between Alito and Miers.\n"He's everything that Harriet Miers was not," Bradley said. "(Bush is) making an effort now to appeal to his conservative base. I think that Scalia and (Justice Clarence) Thomas are enough when it comes to representation of extreme conservatives on the court."\nMiers withdrew her nomination Thursday in response to mounting criticism for her lack of judicial experience.\nBush, in announcing Alito's nomination Monday morning, said the judge "has a deep understanding of the proper role of judges in our society."\n"He understands that judges are to interpret the laws, not to impose their preferences or priorities on the people," the president said.\nAccepting the nomination, Alito pledged at the White House to uphold the duty of a judge to "interpret the Constitution and the laws faithfully and fairly, to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans, and to do these things with care and with restraint."\nSenate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., criticized Bush for not nominating a minority or another woman to fill O'Connor's spot.\n"Justice O'Connor has been the deciding vote in key cases protecting individual rights and freedoms on a narrowly divided court. The stakes in selecting her replacement are high," Reid said.\nStill, Republicans and Democrats alike appreciate being knowledgeable of Alito's judicial experience.\n"Among the range of people that were being mentioned over the past week, I think we could have done a lot worse," Hoffmann said.\n-- The Associated Press contributed to this report.