Bangor NAACP leader urges Snowe, Collins to reject Alito

BANGOR – The head of a local civil rights group called Friday for Maine’s two U.S. senators to vote against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

James Varner, president of the Greater Bangor Area chapter of the NAACP, said during a news conference that confirming Alito would be turning back the clock on civil rights.

“You don’t put a hungry fox in the henhouse to guard the hens,” Varner said, “and that is what our elected officials are willing to do by placing Judge Alito” on the high court.

Varner delivered a letter to the Bangor offices of U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both Republicans.

Collins has said she will vote to confirm Alito; Snowe has not said how she will vote.

A vote that could make Alito the nation’s 110th Supreme Court justice is scheduled for Tuesday, hours before President Bush gives his State of the Union address to Congress and the nation.

Varner urged Snowe and Collins to join a Senate filibuster, a parliamentary tactic designed to delay Senate action.

But party leaders said Friday that Alito now enjoys enough bipartisan support to surmount any Senate filibuster attempt by minority Democrats.

In a letter to both senators, Varner said Alito’s decisions as a judge show that Alito, 55, has “spoken or written against” such core values as voting rights, affirmative action and anti-discrimination laws.