Senator: Cornyn
SPECTER: Senator Cornyn?
CORNYN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The question I think that all of us are confronted with when we hear such contrasting views of a nominee is: Who should we believe?
Of course, those of us on the committee who are lawyers know that the law is pretty clear about how you approach those issues. You look to people who have personal knowledge over those who are merely repeating what they've heard or speculating. You look to the motive of the witness or the person to see if they have some motive for not telling the truth. And, ultimately, you have to make a credibility judgment.
We heard a number of witnesses who testified on behalf of this nominee who know him very well: his law clerks, his fellow judges on the 3rd Circuit, people with personal knowledge, not those that are repeating rumor or speculation or some of the shrill attacks we have heard from those on the outside without any apparent justification.
We've also seen independent groups like the American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Judiciary rank this nominee well qualified after considering his qualifications, his judicial temperament and his integrity.
So, on balance, I must conclude that I believe those that know this nominee best and those who have the professional training and stature to judge this nominee based on the criteria that I think we ought to consider, I believe that he is well qualified.
And that's my conclusion and I'll support his nomination.
CORNYN: Notwithstanding your best efforts, Mr. Chairman, I have some reservations about this committee process that we subjected Judge Alito to. I was very proud of the whole committee. Notwithstanding some of the negative votes about Chief Justice Roberts, I thought this committee discharged its responsibilities well during the Roberts hearing.
But perhaps the most enduring image of this hearing is this picture of Ms. Alito on the front of National Journal, "Enough to make you cry."
A lot of the debates we had about stare decisis, about the proper interpretation of the commerce clause, these are discussions lawyers love and I enjoyed my share of them, but this is something America understands, because it has to do with the fairness of the process and the way that these nominees are treated and the likelihood that if it gets bad enough, that there are going to be people who simply decline to answer the call to public service. And that would be a tragedy.
So I think this hearing, notwithstanding the nominee's qualifications and his performance, which I thought was a good one, notwithstanding my willingness to support the nomination, I find myself tending to agree a little bit with Senator Biden who questioned whether such a process really has a meaningful purpose.
I don't think the hearings should be a place to dump one's political or ideological outbox. And we've heard discussions about this nominee and how he will view presidential power, executive power, how he will regard individual liberties and individual rights. And of course all that is largely speculative and, based on what I see of the evidence, I think unwarranted.
I do conclude, on balance, though, that this has been a useful process. I hope that beyond the posturing and the name-calling and the shrill accusations that the American people have come to see that the judiciary is not about power, political power, it's about the law; it shouldn't be about politics, it should be about principle; and that it's not about the results and result-oriented decision making but rather equal justice under the law.
CORNYN: I think some of my colleagues are opposing Judge Alito not so much because he didn't answer their questions adequately, but because they didn't like the answers he gave.
If you listen to his detractors carefully, you'll hear them say things like they cannot be sure or certain of how Judge Alito will vote on things like abortion on demand or for special rights for those who are suspected of plotting terrorism.
But the only way that you can be certain that Judge Alito will vote a particular way is if Judge Alito promised to do so during this confirmation hearing, and I think he correctly declined to do that.
It would be inappropriate for a nominee to make promises, to run in essence on a political platform of how they will perform if confirmed. And Judge Alito, I think, drew the line correctly and did not do so.
But the statements made by those who are opposing his nomination and some on the outside appear to be based on the fact that he won't support a liberal agenda on the bench.
The sad truth is that there are those in this country who don't want independent, thoughtful, open-minded judges on the courts. There are some people who have views that can't prevail at the ballot box so the only way that they can get their views as part of the law of the land is to circumvent the democratic process and pack the courts with like-minded judges.
They favor things like an end to traditional marriage between one man and one woman, continuation of the barbaric practice of partial- birth abortion, and abolition of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Judge Alito's detractors oppose this nomination because he will not go along with this agenda. When they say, "He's outside the mainstream," what they really mean, as Senator Hatch has said, is he's outside the liberal mainstream.
And this is, of course, is a new standard for Supreme Court justices. Judge Alito is no more conservative than Justice Ginsburg was liberal. Indeed if anything, he's lest conservative than she was liberal, yet her nomination was supported by the committee.
If qualifications, integrity and fairness and judicial philosophy were all that mattered in the process, Judge Alito would be voted out of this committee by a unanimous vote.
But the new rule, the new standard is that any nominee who refuses to promise to impose a certain agenda from the bench, and one that is to the left of America, I believe, as a whole -- as one of his opponents called it, justifies the you-name-it-and-we'll-do-it tactics of distortion and smear.
CORNYN: I'm happy Judge Alito survived these unwarranted attacks. I'm also sorry that his family had to be subjected to them, as well.
At some point, however, we as a committee will need to come to terms with our confirmation process. The current regime treats Supreme Court nominees more like pinatas than human beings. And that's something none of us should be willing to tolerate.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SPECTER: Thank you, Senator Cornyn.
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