Mr. President, on January 4, 2005, I was privileged to take the oath of office as a United States Senator. I raised my right hand and along with my colleagues, Republican and Democrat, pledged to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Now, as this distinguished Body considers the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito, I am reminded again of what that obligation means. The legal experts have had their say on the subject. So today, I want to speak not as a legal scholar, but as a commonsense American citizen.

When our Founding Fathers framed our Constitution, they gave us an incredible gift: a democracy with checks and balances. We will always be indebted to those visionary leaders who understood that we would need a constant, fixed star by which to navigate the unpredictable and changing seas we would encounter.

And today, over 200 years later, the wisdom of our Founders is clear as our Constitution continues to serve as a Protector of liberty and individual freedom.

But Mr. President, as this confirmation process continues to unfold, I fear that we have strayed far from where the Founders intended us to be. I am afraid that we have done a grave disservice not only to Judge Alito, but to other qualified public servants who will certainly think twice before subjecting themselves to the dehumanizing process this has become.

As I watched Judge Alito’s hearings before the Judiciary Committee, I was struck by the harsh personal attacks some leveled against him.

I was proud that my fellow Senator from South Carolina, Senator Graham, expressed the outrage of the American people and apologized to Judge Alito and his family for the behavior of those on the Committee who seemed more intent on slandering him than in fairly examining his long, distinguished legal career.

Sadly, partisanship prevailed and Democrats chose to vote in lockstep against this committed public servant. Every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee voted against this well-qualified judge!

And now, Mr. President, as this nomination comes before the full Senate, the unfair rhetoric continues. I find it sad that yesterday, my colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry took to the Floor in this Chamber to insinuate that he could, as he said “Almost imagine Karl Rove right now whispering to Judge Alito, ‘Just say that you have an open mind, say whatever it takes.’ ”

This accusation is insulting not only to Judge Alito - a man who by all reports is a fair and honest public servant – but to the intelligence of every American who shares Judge Alito’s understanding that the proper role of a judge is to interpret law, not make it.

These types of slanderous accusations also fly in the face of the diverse and numerous independent groups who have stepped forward to defend Judge Alito’s character and qualifications.

Many of his former colleagues, including several judges who have served with him, testified under oath that he is fair and independent.

The American Bar Association, hardly known as a bastion of the right-wing, unanimously agreed to give Judge Alito their highest ranking of “well qualified” for his quote “integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament.”

A bipartisan group of 51 former Alito clerks wrote that the judge was “guided by his profound respect for the Constitution and the limited role of the judicial branch.” That he “applied precedent faithfully and fairly.” Where Congress had spoken, “he gave the statute its commonsense reading,” avoiding both “rigid interpretations that undermined the statute’s clear purpose” and attempts to “distort the statute’s plain language to advance policy goals not adopted by Congress.”

Their conclusion? : “In short, the only result that Judge Alito ever tried to reach in a case was the result dictated by the applicable law and the relevant facts.”

Mr. President, I ask you: under our Constitution, what more could anyone - Republican or Democrat - ask of a judge?

But Judge Alito’s hearings did serve a useful purpose. We now see a new litmus test being used by the Democrats as their standard for nominees. They have decided that the judiciary should be used to advance their own liberal policies. They are looking for a Court that will act as a super-legislature, enabling them to reform laws in ways that Americans have rejected at the polls through the democratic process.

The Democrats lecture us that we must restore “Constitutional checks on the expansion of presidential power” while in the same breath assigning to the judiciary a Constitutional prerogative reserved solely for Congress. I’m having a hard time reconciling those two ideas, and I suspect the American people are, too.

True to their strategy in recent years, the Democrats will say anything, but do nothing - except block what should be done.

Theirs is the philosophy of judicial activism that has led to decisions to ban the Pledge of Allegiance in our schools and allowed local governments to take an American's home to increase tax revenue. Increasingly, judges have legislated precedents that have little basis in written statute or the Constitution, but instead are based on their own personal opinion of what makes a good society.

This point was vividly made when Senator Kohl called for “an expansive and imaginative” interpretation of the Constitution and further stated that the approach of a judge “just applying the law, is very often inadequate to ensure social progress [and] right historic wrongs…”

Judge Alito eloquently addressed this flawed argument when he stated that while previous court decisions are deserving of our respect, if a decision is not supported by the text of the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress, then it should be overturned.

Furthermore, he correctly pointed out that it was exactly this process, not an “imaginative interpretation,” that capably righted historic wrongs in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education. To quote Judge Alito, “When Brown was finally decided, that was not an instance of the court changing the meaning of the equal protection clause; it was an instance of a court righting an incorrect interpretation that had prevailed for a long period of time.”

It is clear that we are facing the grave danger of the slippery slope in which bad precedent - by which I mean precedent not clearly derived from the Constitution or a law passed by Congress - builds upon bad precedent. Before you know it, the original meaning of the law or phrase in question is lost to history.

The Democrats are simply on the wrong side on this important debate. The Constitution is not a list of suggestions. It is the constant, fixed star that should guide every action we take.

The issue before us today reaches far beyond the confirmation of Judge Alito. He has more judicial experience than any Supreme Court nominee in the last seventy years. There is no question that he is imminently qualified to sit on our Nation’s highest Court.

Today, we are debating which of these 2 diametrically opposed philosophies will prevail in the confirmation of future judges: the philosophy in which unelected judges create new law, OR the philosophy that returns a runaway judiciary to acting within the bounds of the checks and balances established in the Constitution.

In my travels in South Carolina, time and again, South Carolinians have asked me to fight for judges who will place the rule of law above their personal opinions.

I support Judge Alito, because he has shown that he will do just that. The consistent winner in his court has not been a person, business, branch of government or political ideology – it has been the Constitution and our democracy.

Mr. President, when the speeches are done and the vote is called, I hope that there will be those on the other side of the aisle who will put aside partisan politics.

I pray that we can join together in affirming the rule of law by voting “yes” to confirm Judge Samuel Alito as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

The American people deserve no less.