Opening Statement Of Nominee Samuel Alito

Opening Statement of Nominee Samuel Alito Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's opening statement Monday to the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing as transcribed by CQ Transcriptions:

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am deeply honored to appear before you. I am deeply honored to have been nominated for a position on the Supreme Court. And I am humbled to have been nominated for the seat that is now held by Justice O'Connor.

Justice O'Connor has been a pioneer, and her dedicated service on the Supreme Court will never be forgotten. And the people of the country certainly owe her a great debt for the service that she has provided.

I'm very thankful to the president for nominating me, and I'm also thankful to the members of this committee and many other senators who took time from their busy schedules to meet with me. That was a great honor for me, and I appreciate all of the courtesies that were extended to me during those visits.

And I want to thank the Senator Lautenberg and Governor Whitman for coming here today and for their kind introductions.

During the previous weeks, an old story about a lawyer who argued a case before the Supreme Court has come to my mind, and I thought I might begin this afternoon by sharing that story.

This was a lawyer who had never argued a case before the court before. And when the argument began, one of the justices said, How did you get here? — meaning how had his case worked its way up through the court system. But the lawyer was rather nervous and he took the question literally and he said — and this was some years ago — he said, I came here on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

This story has come to my mind in recent weeks because I have often asked myself, How in the world did I get here? And I want to try to answer that today and not by saying that I came here on I-95 or on Amtrak.

I am who I am, in the first place, because of my parents and because of the things that they taught me.

And I know from my own experience as a parent that parents probably teach most powerfully not through their words but through their deeds. And my parents taught me through the stories of their lives. And I don't take any credit for the things that they did or the things that they experienced, but they made a great impression on me.

My father was brought to this country as an infant. He lost his mother as a teenager. He grew up in poverty.

Although he graduated at the top of his high school class, he had no money for college. And he was set to work in a factory but, at the last minute, a kind person in the Trenton area arranged for him to receive a $50 scholarship and that was enough in those days for him to pay the tuition at a local college and buy one used suit. And that made the difference between his working in a factory and going to college.

After he graduated from college in 1935, in the midst of the Depression, he found that teaching jobs for Italian-Americans were not easy to come by and he had to find other work for a while.

But eventually he became a teacher and he served in the Pacific during World War II. And he worked, as has been mentioned, for many years in a nonpartisan position for the New Jersey legislature, which was an institution that he revered.

His story is a story that is typical of a lot of Americans both back in his day and today. And it is a story, as far as I can see it, about the opportunities that our country offers, and also about the need for fairness and about hard work and perseverance and the power of a small good deed.

My mother is a first-generation American. Her father worked in the Roebling Steel Mill in Trenton, New Jersey. Her mother came from a culture in which women generally didn't even leave the house alone, and yet my mother became the first person in her family to get a college degree.

She worked for more than a decade before marrying. She went to New York City to get a master's degree. And she continued to work as a teacher and a principal until she was forced to retire.

I got here in part because of the community in which I grew up. It was a warm, but definitely an unpretentious, down-to-earth community. Most of the adults in the neighborhood were not college graduates. I attended the public schools. In my spare time, I played baseball and other sports with my friends.

And I have happy memories and strong memories of those days and good memories of the good sense and the decency of my friends and my neighbors.

And after I graduated from high school, I went a full 12 miles down the road, but really to a different world when I entered Princeton University. A generation earlier, I think that somebody from my background probably would not have felt fully comfortable at a college like Princeton. But, by the time I graduated from high school, things had changed.

And this was a time of great intellectual excitement for me. Both college and law school opened up new worlds of ideas. But this was back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

It was a time of turmoil at colleges and universities. And I saw some very smart people and very privileged people behaving irresponsibly. And I couldn't help making a contrast between some of the worst of what I saw on the campus and the good sense and the decency of the people back in my own community.

I had the good fortune to begin my legal career as a law clerk for a judge who really epitomized open-mindedness and fairness. He read the record in detail in every single case that came before me; he insisted on scrupulously following precedents, both the precedents of the Supreme Court and the decisions of his own court, the 3rd Circuit.

He taught all of his law clerks that every case has to be decided on an individual basis. And he really didn't have much use for any grand theories.

After my clerkship finished, I worked for more than a decade as an attorney in the Department of Justice.

And I can still remember the day, as an assistant U.S. attorney, when I stood up in court for the first time and I proudly said, My name is Samuel Alito and I represent the United States in this court. It was a great honor for me to have the United States as my client during all of those years.

I have been shaped by the experiences of the people who are closest to me, by the things I've learned from Martha, by my hopes and my concerns for my children, Philip and Laura, by the experiences of members of my family, who are getting older, by my sister's experiences as a trial lawyer in a profession that has traditionally been dominated by men.

And, of course, I have been shaped for the last 15 years by my experiences as a judge of the court of appeals.

During that time, I have sat on thousands of cases — somebody mentioned the exact figure this morning; I don't know what the exact figure is, but it is way up into the thousands — and I have written hundreds of opinions.

And the members of this committee and the members of their staff, who have had the job of reviewing all of those opinions, really have my sympathy.

I've learned a lot during my years on the 3rd Circuit, particularly, I think, about the way in which a judge should go about the work of judging. I've learned by doing, by sitting on all of these cases. And I think I've also learned from the examples of some really remarkable colleagues.

When I became a judge, I stopped being a practicing attorney. And that was a big change in role.

The role of a practicing attorney is to achieve a desirable result for the client in the particular case at hand. But a judge can't think that way. A judge can't have any agenda, a judge can't have any preferred outcome in any particular case and a judge certainly doesn't have a client.

The judge's only obligation — and it's a solemn obligation — is to the rule of law. And what that means is that in every single case, the judge has to do what the law requires.

Good judges develop certain habits of mind. One of those habits of mind is the habit of delaying reaching conclusions until everything has been considered.

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 who's appearing before them, or a comment that is made by a colleague during the conference on the case when the judges privately discuss the case.

It's been a great honor for me to spend my career in public service. It has been a particular honor for me to serve on the court of appeals for these past 15 years, because it has given me the opportunity to use whatever talent I have to serve my country by upholding the rule of law.

And there is nothing that is more important for our republic than the rule of law. No person in this country, no matter how high or powerful, is above the law, and no person in this country is beneath the law.

Fifteen years ago, when I was sworn in as a judge of the court of appeals, I took an oath. I put my hand on the Bible and I swore that I would administer justice without respect to persons, that I would do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I would carry out my duties under the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

And that is what I have tried to do to the very best of my ability for the past 15 years. And if I am confirmed, I pledge to you that that is what I would do on the Supreme Court.

Let's be honest: The Alito hearings were a disaster for the RATS. They didn't get Alito and they got PORKED this time, by fat boy Kennedy. Borking is finishing. Porking is in.

Beautiful story. This is the first time I've seen it.

I suppose the news media have suppressed it because no one could possibly read it without feeling great sympathy for Judge Alito. And they don't want that.

It just goes to show you why the media are killing themselves. This speech is the most central piece of information I have read about Judge Alito. It is deeply moving. It should, rightly, have the effect of making any young person who reads it a better person, which used to be thought the whole purpose of poetry or literature.

And the media don't want anyone to read it, because it might make their readers better in a politically incorrect sort of way, God forbid!

Very, very nice. Our local afternoon Talk Radio ConservaBabe has had two of his previous clerks on her show this week singing his praises...and they were both card-carrying socialists!

I won't gloat, but I predicted the Meirs nomination and withdrawl was part of President Bush's usual 'Rope-a-Dope' when it comes to the Dimowits. Such pompus, outlandish idiots; and all on parade for us to watch this past week. :)

I agree. I've run into Teddy Kennedy a couple of times because some friends of ours are friends of his, but I frankly couldn't get myself to say anything to him. I would be proud to know Judge Alito.

Alito did work one piece of what you might call "political" writing into his speech, and I think it's worth some comment:

There, I think, we see Judge Alito's opinion of the Protest Movement and the Great Countercultural Revolution. He was at Princeton at the height of all that turmoil. I'm sure the Democrats who heard him say this were none too pleased by what it says about him.

As I think it over, I think this post belongs in Breaking News for a while, so more Freepers will see it.

It's certainly the first time I've seen it. It's centrally important to the Alito hearings. It was news when it was spoken. And it's a great read.

Would the Admin have a look at it, and put the headline over there if it deserves it? Thanks.

Thanks for the post. I didn't catch any of the 'defamation' hearing on the MSM, but I hear he did well. After reading this, it is no wonder. I look forward to his service on the SCOTUS.

We should fax our Senators and especally Kennedy, Schumer and Bayh this speech. (With a little message.) Maybe they didn't listen to it the first time.

Sen. Kennedy fax # 202-224-2417
Sen. Bayh Fax# 202-228-0655
Sen. Schumer 202-228-3027

My message:
Dear Senator, 1/14/2006
Do you know the difference between a speech and a question?
Are manners still a part of the Senate?
Do you have any manners?

This is horrible behavior I am witnessing. and it is coming from YOU, Senator.

If this is the fabulous kind of man, Judge Alito, that we can get to serve our Country, they should not be treated with contempt.

How would you like to be treated like that?

Maybe this is what we need?

To the Sidebar moderator, see my #7 above. Could this be put in Breaking News for a while? I think it deserves to be seen by as many Freepers as possible, and it's as important as anything else on Alito posted here that I've seen.

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