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Contact: Cindy Roberts (662) 844-5036 ext. 227
For Immediate Release:  10/31/2005

AFA CLP applauds nomination of Alito for the Supreme Court

(Tupelo, MS) - American Family Association Center for Law & Policy (CLP) applauds President Bush’s nomination of 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Samuel A. Alito to fill the seat being vacated by retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. President George H.W. Bush appointed Judge Alito to the 3rd circuit in 1990.

Alito is a conservative jurist who is certain to receive strong backing from conservatives. Alito was the lone dissenter on the 3rd Circuit Court in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Casey involved a Pennsylvania law that required women to inform their husbands before they got an abortion. The Supreme Court struck the law as unconstitutional.

Because his constitutionalism is similar to Justice Antonin Scalia’s, Alito is sometimes referred to as “Scalito.” Alito’s even temperament and polite manner, though, should be an asset on a Court that is sometimes bitterly divided. Alito was educated at Princeton University and earned his law degree from Yale University.

Fox News reports that former appellate judge Timothy Lewis who served with Alito, has ideological differences with him but believes he would be a good Supreme Court justice.

“There is nobody that I believe would give my case a more fair and balanced treatment,” Lewis told Fox News. “He has no agenda. He's open-minded, he's fair and he’s balanced.”

Brian Fahling, American Family Association Center for Law & Policy senior trial attorney, commented, “Mr. Bush has nominated to the High Court a man of unquestioned commitment to the Constitution and the rule of law. I thought it would be difficult to find the intellectual equal of Justice Roberts, but Mr. Bush has found him in Judge Alito.”

Fahling also noted that at 55, Alito would likely have a long tenure on the Court if confirmed.

American Family Association is a pro-family advocacy organization with over two million online supporters.

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