Date: January, 9 2006
Senator: General - Introductions
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SPECTER: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. The Senate Judiciary Committee will now proceed to the confirmation hearings of Judge Samuel Alito Jr., for the Supreme Court of the United States.
A few matters of administration or housekeeping, and then we will proceed to the opening statements.
Today we will hear first from Judge Alito's introduction of his family.
Judge, the floor is yours to introduce your family.
ALITO: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me introduce my wife Martha, who's here today. And my sister Rosemary, who's a lawyer in New Jersey and a tough trial lawyer. I'm glad that she took time from her schedule to come to the hearing today.
My daughter Laura, who is a senior at James Caldwell High School in West Caldwell, New Jersey, and if a father can be permitted to brag for a second, a really great swimmer who led her high school team to win the county championship last week.
My son Philip who's a second-year student at the University of Virginia.
And when I had my confirmation hearing for the Court of Appeals, Philip was 3 years old. And when I was called up to the chair he took it upon himself to run up and sit next to me in case any hard questions came up.
(LAUGHTER)
I don't know whether he's going to try the same thing tomorrow, but probably I could use the help.
I'm glad that my in-laws are able to be here today. My father- in-law, Gene Bomgardner, who is a retired Air Force NCO. And my mother-in-law, Barbara Bomgardner, who is a retired Air Force librarian.
And my cousins, Andrew and Alda Mercurio (ph) from Lynn Valley (ph), Pennsylvania, are also here.
My mother, who turned 91 a couple of weeks ago, unfortunately is not able to be here today, but I'm sure she's watching at home.
ALITO: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
SPECTER: Well, thank you, Judge Alito. You have a beautiful family, and we're delighted to have them with us on the confirmation proceedings.
We will have 10-minute rounds of opening statements: each senator, 10 minutes. We will then turn to the presenters of those who will be presenting Judge Alito formally to the committee. And then we will administer the oath to Judge Alito and we will hear his testimony.
We will begin tomorrow morning at 9:30 for the opening round of questions. Each senator will have 30 minutes on the opening round and we have a second round scheduled of 20 minutes for each senator. And then we will see how we will proceed.
Our practice is to adhere to the time limits. And we do that for a number of reasons. One of them is that senators come and go and if we maintain the schedule which is known to everybody, they know when to return for their next round of questions.
We will take 15-minute breaks at a convenient time. And again, we will hold the breaks to 15 minutes.
I've worked closely with Senator Leahy on scheduling matters and all other matters. And this is the model that we used for the confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts.
It is our intention to conclude the hearings this week. And as Senator Leahy and I worked out the arrangements to have a markup on Tuesday of January 17th, subject to something extraordinary happening.
SPECTER: Now let me yield to the distinguished ranking member, Senator Leahy.
LEAHY: Well, Mr. Chairman, I don't want to hold up your opening statement or the others.
I do appreciate people being here. As the Roberts hearings showed -- for Chief Justice John Roberts -- there will be real questions asked, I would hope. I would hope senators on both sides of the aisle would do that. I think it's important, when we are talking about a position representing 295 million Americans.
On the schedule, I will work with the senior senator from Pennsylvania, the chairman. I understand, as one of our leaders once said, getting senators to all move in order is like having bullfrogs in a wheelbarrow.
But we will continue to work with that. I think the most important thing is we have a good solid hearing this week.
And, Mr. Chairman, you have been totally fair in your procedures for this, as always.
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