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Alito once suggested chipping at 'Roe'

Alito's 1985 advice was rejected, as the Reagan administration sought to overturn Roe

WASHINGTON - As a young government lawyer opposed to abortion rights, Samuel Alito argued for a strategy of chipping away at the landmark Supreme Court 1973 ruling legalizing abortion rather than mounting an all-out assault likely to inflict a defeat on the Reagan administration, according to documents released Wednesday.

"No one seriously believes that the court is about to overrule Roe vs. Wade, " the Supreme Court nominee wrote in an internal Justice Department memo on May 30, 1985. Referring to a high court decision to review two abortion-related cases at the time, he asked, "What can be made of this opportunity to advance the goals of bringing about the eventual overruling ... and in the meantime, of mitigating its effects."

The memo was among several hundred pages of documents dating from Alito's 1981-87 tenure in the Justice Department, released on the day the Supreme Court heard arguments in an abortion case for the first time in five years.

The argument before the justices Wednesday concerned the validity of a New Hampshire law that requires a parent to be told before a daughter ends her pregnancy - roughly the type of case that Alito was writing about two decades ago when he urged the administration to seek small victories in its legal battle against abortion. A ruling is not expected for months.

Apart from the release of Reagan-era records from the National Archives, the White House made public Alito's answers to a questionnaire from the Senate Judiciary Committee. The panel plans confirmation hearings beginning Jan.9, and majority Republicans hope for a final vote on his nomination Jan.20.

Asked to provide his views on judicial activism, Alito, 55 and a veteran of 15 years on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote that the courts "must engage in a constant process of self-discipline to ensure that they respect the limits of their authority."

Judges must "have faith that the cause of justice in the long run is best served if they scrupulously heed the limits of their role rather than transgressing those limits in an effort to achieve a desired result," he wrote.

The memo was contained in Justice Department records that the Clinton administration had turned over to the Archives in 1999.

[Last modified December 1, 2005, 01:08:09]