onfirmation hearings for Samuel Alito, the man President Bush wants to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States, have been scheduled to begin on January 9, 2006.

   Alito, a Judge on the 3rd U.S. Court of Appeals was nominated late last month to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. The Bush administration chose the 55-year-old Roman Catholic after White House counsel Harriet Miers announced that she was no longer pursuing her nomination following protests by conservatives who questioned her ideological reliability.

   The selection of Judge Alito, however, seems to have calmed those misgivings on the right. Pro-choice, state-church separation, gay rights and civil liberties organizations, however, fear that if confirmed, Alito would weaken or even reverse key SCOTUS rulings and move the court in a dangerous direction. Advocacy groups supporting and opposing the Alito nomination have been hard at work raising money and mobilizing their respective bases. The January hearings and debate on Capitol Hill are expected to be acrimonious.

   Like the new Chief Justice John Roberts, Alito has an impressive legal resume which is being showcased by his supporters.

   He was born in Trenton, NJ and attended Princeton University. He graduated from Yale University Law School in 1975, and became a deputy assistant attorney general with the Reagan administration.

   From 1987 to 1990, Alito served as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, where his first assistant was Michael Chertoff, now the Secretary for Homeland Security. He was named to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, and left a record of opinions in nearly 300 cases, several of them providing a glimpse of Alito's disposition on the First Amendment, free exercise of religion, and the separation of church and state.

   Although the Bush administrated has tried to rush the Alito nomination saying that it wanted Senate action "before the end of the year," the volume of writings reflecting his 15 years on the bench has slowed the whole tempo of the confirmation process. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA.), head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters that putting Alito's appointment to the high court on the fast-track "simply couldn't be done."

   "We have to do it right," Specter said. "We can't do it fast."

   Republican partisans like Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee praised Alito and vocally demanded a swift "up or down" vote on the nominee.

   Meanwhile, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has accused the White House of appointing a candidate that will continue to generate divisiveness.

   "When there is a controversial nominee for a pivotal swing vote on the court, the process should not be short-circuited or rushed," he warned reporters. He also urged caution and a thorough examination of Alito's judicial philosophy and record.

   "Nothing is on the table and nothing is off the table, let's learn what we can about this judge."

   That means that the formal confirmation hearings will commence on January, with a vote by the full Senate about January 20, 2006.

   Among the concerns being raised over the Alito nomination is the prospect of members of the Roman Catholic faith dominating the nation's highest legal authority. Should he be confirmed, Alito would join the new Chief Justice John Roberts and associated justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy in making up the Supreme Court's first-ever Catholic majority.

   Catholics have been under considerable pressure from church prelates to conform to ecclesiastical doctrine on issues such as abortion and gay rights. Indeed, Roman Catholics running for public office have been threatened with excommunication and other forms of censure by a church with a long history of political activism and influence.

   Other concerns involve gender politics. Alito replaces outgoing justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a woman considered a crucial moderate and swing vote on the bench.

   While most media coverage has focused on Samuel Alito's stance on abortion (he has stated that the ROE v. WADE decision was flawed, and voted uphold a "parental notification" standard for minors seeking abortion), his position on state-church separation is equally disturbing.

   By most accounts, if placed on SCOTUS, Alito would be part of emergent court majority working hard to lower the "wall of separation" between religion and government, especially on the volatile issue of displays of public religion. That fact led Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice to boast to reporters that the Alito nomination was a "grand slam" for the Christian religious right. Pat Robertson, prominent televangelist and founder of the ACLJ gushed during a recent episode of his "700 Club" program that Judge Alito "has consistently ruled in our favor."

   And the nominee has been dubbed "Scalito," a reference to his judicial and ideological similarity with Antonin Scalia, the high court's most strident opponent of strong separation between government and religion.

   The best clues about how "Scalito" might rule on the First Amendment suggests that as justice, Alito would favor the "free exercise" clause above the prohibition that the state may not "establish" religious belief or exercise. While on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court, for example, Alito upheld the order of a lower court to treat an off-campus religious group as any other organization that wanted to hold gatherings in a public school (CHILD EVANGELISM FELLOWSHIP OF N.J. v. STAFFORD TWP, 2004).

   He took a similar position in C.H. v. OLIVA (2000) which took up the matter of alleged discrimination against a faith-based group. The case involved public school officials who ordered a student poster with a religious theme removed, claiming that it did so in order to avoid violating the establishment provision. Despite arguments that other students were highly impressionable and "captive" by attending the school, Alito insisted that the authorities "are not permitted to discriminate against student expression simply because of its religious character."

   Both supporters and critics see the nominee as "religion friendly," and a justice who would stretch legal interpretations in order to demand "equal treatment" when religious expression is involved. If confirmed, Alito could also be a pivotal vote when practices like "student led' or "student initiated" prayer at school events reach SCOTUS. One indication of this was Alito's decision in a 1994 case, ACLU OF NJ v. BLACK HORSE PIKE REGIONAL BOARD OF EDUCATION. Students at Highland High School in Camden County, NJ were asked to vote on whether a graduation ceremony should include prayer. The prayer, ostensibly composed and given by a student, won 128 votes, with 120 students supporting a moment of silence. Only 20 opposed any religious message.

   The graduation prayer was blocked by two judges sitting on the 3rd Circuit Court; and in a subsequent 9-4 decision, the full court majority opined that an unconstitutional practice such as prayer at official public school ceremonies could not be rendered permissible simply by a majority vote of students.

   Alito, however, joined another judge in arguing that the prayer should have been permitted, and that schools "may not discriminate against student religious activity."

   The issue of "student led" prayer or other religious exercise remains especially poignant today. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled 6-3 that a Texas public school district could not allow students to lead crowds at athletic events in pre-game religious devotionals. President Bush supported the prayer, however, and even used public money to have the state attorney defend the case.

   Another element of First Amendment law involves the issue of "special rights" and exemptions for religious groups and practices.

   In FOP NEWARK LODGE NO. 12 v. CITY OF NEWARK (1999), Alito ruled that a police department policy banning beards on officers did not provide for a religious exemption. More significantly, in BLACKHAWK v. PENNSYLVANIA (2004), Alito opined that the government violated the rights of Native Americans in denying a religious exemption from permit fees for killing black bears for ritualistic use. This suggests that Alito is likely to not only support but increase the interpretive leeway for the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) which requires the state to provide a "compelling interest" argument before placing any "burden" on religious groups or practices.

   That law has provided faith-based groups with what critics say is an unfair legal instrument in challenging and trumping laws applicable to others, including private individuals, groups and businesses.

   For supporters, though, Alito would be an asset on the court. Kevin Hasson of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty -- a group which frequently intervenes on behalf of RLUIPA and similar statutes -- praised the nominee for being "respectful" of religion.

   "Both liberals and conservatives say Alito appears more willing than Scalia to take a hard look at government rules restricting religious expression," noted Newhouse News Service writer Robert Schwaneberg.

   On balance, a Justice Alito would be likely to support more robust public religious expression, everything from prayer in schools to the display of religious monuments like the Ten Commandments, as permitted by the free speech and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment. In two cases while on the 3rd Circuit, Alito supported the display of Christian nativity scenes and Jewish menorah when they were "secularized" by the presence of holiday symbols.

   Reading how Alito may vote on the equally testy subject of government funding of religious groups may be more problematic, however. There is no track record of earlier decisions or clear written statements. But arguments that religious groups should be entitled to the same taxpayer-subsidized financial benefits as secular social programs may find a favorable hearing should Alito ascend to the bench. Indeed, Alito's vote could swing the court in an even more dramatic move to "accommodate" and support religious practices, and continue to vitiate the constitutional requirement that government and religion should remain forever separate.

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