Senate's 'Gang of 14' fractures over Alito
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-03 09:13

The 55-year-old Alito — who has served for 15 years on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after being a government lawyer and U.S. attorney — got rave reviews from the Republicans he met Wednesday.

The Senate's No. 2 Republican, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, called Alito a "very, very impressive intellect and a very well qualified nominee." Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas added, "Unless something very different comes out that we don't know about, I certainly would intend to support him."

After a flurry of filibuster talk immediately following Alito's nomination, Senate Democrats now are taking a wait-and-see stance.

"I don't know a single Democrat who is saying that it's time for a filibuster, that we should really consider it," said Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, after meeting with Alito on Wednesday. "It's way too early."

Nelson said Alito had assured him "that he wants to go to the bench without a political agenda, that he is not bringing a hammer and chisel to hammer away and chisel away on existing law."

Durbin said the judge never refused to answer any of his questions — as Miers and John Roberts had during their private interviews — and that Alito told him he saw a right to privacy in the Constitution, one of the building blocks of the court's landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision.

Alito said that when it came to his dissent on Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a case in which the 3rd Circuit struck down a Pennsylvania law that included a provision requiring women seeking abortions to notify their spouses, that "he spent more time worrying over it and working on that dissent than any he had written as a judge," Durbin recounted.