HARRIET JUNIOR:

Alito Is Called 'Sensitive' to Executive Power (Jo Becker, November 5, 2005, Washington Post)

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. once said that a Supreme Court decision upholding the creation of an independent counsel "hit the doctrine of separation of powers about as hard as heavyweight champ Mike Tyson usually hits his opponents." [...]

Alito also praised former solicitor general Charles Fried for winning "a great separation of powers victory" in a 1986 case that struck down a central provision of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Act.

The balanced-budget legislation had called for a comptroller general, whom Congress had the power to remove from office, to trigger automatic spending cuts in the event that certain deficit reduction goals were not achieved. But the Supreme Court struck down that provision as one that unconstitutionally encroached on the president's powers.

Former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson said that Alito's deference to presidential power in both cases is not surprising, given that Alito had served in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. A key duty of the Office of Legal Counsel is to prevent against encroachments into presidential power, he said.

"He's clearly sensitive to the issue," Olson said, "but as to how he would rule on any given case, I wouldn't draw any conclusions."

But Cass R. Sunstein, a liberal constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago, said that Alito's views are relevant to understanding how he may rule. "It's noteworthy that he shares the view of Justice Scalia, and it suggests that he has a quite broad understanding of presidential power," Sunstein said.