Liberal Coalition Is Making Plans to Take Fight Beyond Abortion - New York Times

Liberal Coalition Is Making Plans to Take Fight Beyond Abortion - New York TimesNovember 14, 2005
The Opposition
Liberal Coalition Is Making Plans to Take Fight Beyond Abortion
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 - A coalition of liberal groups is preparing a national television advertising campaign against the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. that seeks to move the debate over his selection beyond abortion rights and focus instead on subjects like police searches and employment discrimination, several leaders of the coalition said.

The possibility that Judge Alito could vote to narrow abortion rights has dominated discussion among both supporters and opponents of his nomination. But Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice and one of the leaders of the coalition, said a poll commissioned by her organization showed the potential to attack Judge Alito on aspects of his record that had received less attention.

In addition to the alliance, a liberal legal group that focuses on judicial nominations, the coalition includes the abortion rights groups Naral Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood, as well as People for the American Way, the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Sierra Club.

Last week, the alliance released results of a poll that highlighted elements of the judge's record unrelated to abortion that the liberal groups say could have greater resonance with moderate voters.

Among the issues raised by the poll was Judge Alito's support as a lawyer in the Reagan administration for an employer's right to fire someone who had AIDS. Another issue was a judicial opinion he wrote supporting a police strip-search of a suspected drug dealer's female companion and her 10-year-old daughter. Others included his votes as a judge against employment discrimination suits and an opinion overturning part of the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Judge Alito has explained his reasons for supporting an employer's right to fire someone because that person had AIDS. He told The Washington Post, "We certainly did not want to encourage irrational discrimination, but we had to interpret the law as it stands."

He voted to uphold the strip search of the mother and daughter in Doe v. Groody, arguing in a dissenting opinion that the police were justified in their reading of their warrant because drug dealers often hid narcotics with the help of others in their households.

Besides the potential they see in other subjects, the liberal groups' advertising strategy also reflects the difficulty of pinning down Judge Alito's stand on abortion rights. Last summer, an abortion-rights group withdrew a commercial opposing the nomination of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. amid criticism that it misconstrued his defense of clinic protestors as support for a bomber.

The Alliance for Justice poll showed that a majority of Americans would oppose Judge Alito if they thought he would vote to overturn the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade. But although groups on both sides of the issue expect Jude Alito to narrow abortion rights, his judicial record is hardly definitive.

His most controversial opinion on the subject was a dissent supporting provisions of a Pennsylvania law that with some exceptions required married women to notify their husbands before obtaining abortions. Many polls have shown that a majority of voters favor such restrictions.

People involved in the advertising effort said the coalition was planning to spend several million dollars to broadcast commercials, perhaps beginning late this week, on national cable networks and in the home states of potentially pivotal senators.

The groups are starting their campaign much earlier in the process than they have for past nominees; liberal groups did not begin advertising against Judge Robert H. Bork until around the start of his confirmation hearings. Judge Alito's hearings are two months away.

Even before seeing the commercials, Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the White House, accused the groups of planning "millions of dollars worth of wildly inaccurate advertisements that border on character assassination."

Sean Rushton, executive director of the Committee for Justice, an organization that supports President Bush's nominees, said the liberal groups were recognizing that their opposition to abortion restrictions would alienate mainstream voters.

Mr. Rushton said the advertising campaign would end up helping Judge Alito by enabling conservatives to mount their own campaign in his defense, attacking the liberal groups for their stands on gay rights and other social issues. When Judge Alito testifies, the conservative groups' commercials "will just paint the accusers as the shrill and extreme ones," Mr. Rushton said.

Ms. Aron and Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way and another leader of the coalition, emphasized that the liberal groups were not backing away from the abortion rights issue.

"To put together the broadest possible coalition and to appeal to as many voters as we can," Ms. Aron said, "raising all aspects of his record are important, including the abortion issues."

The goal, Mr. Neas said, is "to make clear that that is one of many issues" in "an epic struggle between two competing and radically different judicial philosophies."

Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, said her organization was "lock step" with the rest of the coalition and understood the need to emphasize issues in addition to abortion, "to look at the whole man, so to speak."