Stephen Laffey on Government Reform Republican Senate Challenger

Supported Sam Alito nomination to Supreme Court

LAFFEY: Alito served for 15 years at the federal bench and did a great job. After looking at his record and watching him testify, I certainly would have approved him. The difference between Chafee and I on this issue is: 1) he has a litmus test for Supreme Court justices. I look at their character. I'll look at their independence. I'll look at their law school.. And 2) Chafee made himself completely irrelevant in the process. He was the 99th senator to make up his mind.

CHAFEE: I carefully followed the judiciary committee hearings to see how Alito answered some of these questions important to me and to the country, and then conferred with many experts of the interpretation of those answers in that committee. I think I've been vindicated. In the last vote on executive powers, Alito was in the expansion of those powers and on the commerce clause as it relates to the Clean Water Act and a Michigan case heard by the Supreme Court.

Endorses the Pork-Barrel Reduction Act