At Hearings, Democrats Plan to Call Critics of Alito's Integrity

[rodeodance]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/politics/politicsspecial1/06alito.html?pagewanted=print

January 6, 2006
At Hearings, Democrats Plan to Call Critics of Alito's Integrity
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 - Signaling their intent to put up a tough fight in next week's hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., Senate Democrats said Thursday that they would call at least two witnesses who could question his personal credibility as well several experts on civil rights and constitutional law.

One witness is John G. S. Flym, a legal scholar. In 2002, Mr. Flym served as counsel to a plaintiff suing the mutual fund company Vanguard in a case that came before Judge Alito on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.......

Judge Alito had pledged at his confirmation hearings for the appeals court in 1990 that he would recuse himself from cases involving Vanguard, which managed his investments, and when a panel including him ruled unanimously in the company's favor, Mr. Flym complained to the court.

Judge Alito has attributed the lapse to an error in a courthouse computer system that screened for potential conflicts. Ethics guidelines did not require him to recuse himself, and he volunteered to do so at his confirmation hearings to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

[texpatriot2004]

1. Go Dems, good job and thanks. nm

[rodeodance]

2. Repugs constantly attach characters, yet whine when Dems do the same.

.....The other witness expected to address Judge Alito's character is Stephen R. Dujack, a journalist who has criticized a conservative alumni group to which Judge Alito belonged. The group, Concerned Alumni of Princeton, opposed the university's admission of women, criticized its affirmative action policies and urged the admission of more alumni children. It went out of business around 1987.

Judge Alito wrote in a 1985 application for a promotion in the Reagan administration that he belonged to the group. Records of the group give no indication that he played an active role in it, and in a response to a Senate judicial questionnaire for the Supreme Court nomination Judge Alito said he did not recall being a member until he was reminded by the disclosure of his 1985 application.

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas and a member of the Judiciary Committee, said the witnesses were a sign that Democrats were grasping for objections. "It just shows how desperate they are to come up with something to criticize him for," he said.