US: Samuel Alito, President George Bush's nominee to the supreme court, has told senators that the US constitution guarantees a right to privacy and that he would approach abortion issues with an open mind, writes Denis Staunton in Washington
Appearing before the senate judiciary committee on the second day of his confirmation hearings, Mr Alito faced tough questions from Democrats on his attitude to executive power, his failure to recuse himself from a case involving an investment firm in which he had an interest and his membership of a Princeton University graduates' group that sought to restrict the number of women and minority students.
He declined to comment on current controversies surrounding presidential power, including Mr Bush's authorisation of eavesdropping on US citizens without a warrant and White House attempts to circumvent a ban on torture.
But Mr Alito repudiated a statement he made in 1985 suggesting that the elected branches of government were superior to the judicial branch.
"No person in this country is above the law. And that includes the president and it includes the Supreme Court.
"Everybody has to follow the law, and that means the constitution of the United States and it means the laws that are enacted under the constitution of the United States," he said.
The ranking Democrat on the committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, asked how, as the son of Italian immigrants, Mr Alito could join an organisation such as the Concerned Alumni of Princeton University, which sought to keep immigrants and women out of the university.
"My paternal grandfather, whom I never knew, named Patrick Leahy, died as a stonecutter in Vermont. My father was a young teen and had to go to work to support his mother, my grandmother, whom I also never knew. And the signs then were 'No Irish need apply' or 'No Catholics need apply'.
"And I think you and I would be in total agreement that we're now in a different world, at least most of our country. And that we're better - we're better people because we've done away with that," Mr Alito said.
He did not recall joining the organisation, although he mentioned his membership of it in a job application to the Reagan administration in 1985.
"From what I now know about the group, it seemed to be dedicated to the idea of bringing back the Princeton that existed at a prior point in time.
"And as you said, somebody from my background would not have been comfortable in an institution like that, and that certainly was not any part of my thinking in whatever I did in relation to this group," he said.
Senator Edward Kennedy pressed Mr Alito on his failure to keep a promise to recuse himself from cases involving Vanguard, an investment group.
Mr Alito said he had made a mistake in failing to recuse himself from a Vanguard case that came before him but pointed out that he had not benefited financially in any way.
Democrats on the committee avoided questioning Mr Alito on abortion, leaving the issue to moderate Republicans such as committee chairman Arlen Specter.
They focused instead on Mr Alito's record as a judge in finding in favour of the government and the police, even when official actions seemed excessive.
They pointed to his opinion that police were justified in strip-searching a 10-year-old girl and her mother during a drugs raid and that US marshals acted reasonably in pointing guns to the heads of a poor, unarmed farming family during an eviction.