Feingold's opening statement on Alito

The opening statement of Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., as prepared for delivery at the Supeme Court confirmation hearing for Samuel Alito.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to welcome our nominee and thank him in advance for the long hours he will put in this week. I greatly admire your legal qualifications and record of public service, Judge Alito, and I wish you well here. As with the hearing on the nomination of Chief Justice Roberts, I approach this proceeding with an open mind.

Judge Alito, as a longtime student of the law and the Supreme Court, I know you appreciate the importance of the process that we begin today. A position on the Supreme Court is one of the highest honors and greatest responsibilities in our country. The Constitution requires the Senate to offer its advice and decide whether to grant its consent to your nomination. And the Senate has delegated to the Judiciary Committee the task of examining your record and hearing your testimony and responses to questions about your views.

So it is our job in these hearings to try to get a sense for ourselves, for our colleagues who are not on the Committee, and for the American people, of whether you should be given the enormous responsibility of protecting our citizens’ constitutional freedoms on the Supreme Court. So you will obviously face tough questions here, Judge Alito. No one is entitled to a seat on the Supreme Court simply because he has been nominated by the President. The burden is on the nominee to demonstrate that he should be confirmed.

We begin these hearings today at an important time. Less than a month ago, we learned that this Administration has for years been spying on American citizens without a court order and without following the laws passed by Congress. Americans are understandably asking each other whether our government believes it is subject to the rule of law. Now, more than ever, we need a strong and independent judicial branch. We need judges who will stand up and tell the executive branch it is wrong when it ignores or distorts the laws passed by Congress. We need judges who see themselves as custodians of the rights and freedoms that the Constitution guarantees, even when the President of the United States is telling the country that he should be able to decide unilaterally how far those freedoms go.

To win my support, Judge Alito will have to show that he is up to this challenge. His instincts sometimes seem to be to defer to the executive branch, to minimize the ability of the courts to question the executive in national security cases, to grant prosecutors whatever powers they seek, to deny relief to those accused of crimes who assert that their constitutional rights were violated. It will be up to Judge Alito to satisfy the Senate that he can be fair and objective in these kinds of cases. We need judges on the bench who will ensure that the judicial branch of government is the independent check on executive power that the Constitution requires and the American people expect.

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