WASHINGTON (AP) – Republicans like him. Democrats don’t.

It was that simple Tuesday when it came time for the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote on Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court. On a party-line vote, the committee’s 10 Republicans advanced the conservative judge’s nomination to the full Senate over the objections of the eight Democrats.

Alito – who wants to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and become the nation’s 110th justice – faces an easier time in the GOP-controlled Senate.

He already has commitments from a majority of senators, assuring his confirmation and a likely tilt of the court to the right.

Fifty Senate Republicans, plus one Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, have publicly committed to vote for Alito through their representatives, interviews with The Associated Press or news releases.

No Republicans have opposed him, and five have yet to declare how they will vote: Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Ted Stevens of Alaska.

One of Alito’s supporters, Republican Sen. Craig Thomas of Wyoming, announced after meeting with Alito in his Senate office: “He represents the kind of justice who will interpret the law with respect to the Constitution and not legislate from the bench. His judicial experience is second to none, and I’m confident he will do an excellent job handling his constitutional responsibility.”

Twenty Democrats are publicly opposing President Bush’s pick to replace O’Connor, while 23 others and independent Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont are still publicly undecided or refuse to say how they will vote.

The only way Democrats can stop the conservative judge is through a filibuster, a maneuver they show little interest in.

The final debate on the 55-year-old New Jersey jurist begins today.

“We urge the Senate to move forward with a swift up-or-down vote so he can begin serving on our nation’s highest court,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Democrats are working to get a large opposition vote to make their points against Bush.

“I think it sends a message to the American people that this guy is not King George, he’s President George,” said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Bush should have picked a woman, said Reid, who urged the president last year to pick White House counsel Harriet Miers. “They couldn’t go for her because she was an independent woman,” Reid said of Miers, whose nomination was withdrawn under conservative criticism.

Bush then picked Alito, a 15-year federal appeals judge, former federal prosecutor and lawyer for the Reagan administration.

Republicans say he is a perfect choice for the high court. They praise his parrying of Democratic attacks on his judicial record and personal credibility during his confirmation hearings.

“If anybody has demonstrated judicial temperament and poise and patience, it is Judge Alito. And he ought to be confirmed on that basis alone,” said committee chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

Democrats worry that Alito, along with new Chief Justice John Roberts, will push the court to the right and could even help overturn Roe v. Wade, the abortion rights case.

“Roberts, who promised us humility, who promised us that he would be looking to chart a middle course, we see time and again that he’s falling in league with Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, referring to Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the court’s most conservative members.

“My fear is that we are adding a fourth vote to that coalition with Sam Alito’s nomination. And that’s why I’m going to vote no,” Durbin said.

Roberts won the votes of 22 Democrats last year – including three on the Judiciary Committee, ranking Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Wisconsin Sens. Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl. Those three senators voted against Alito on Tuesday.

Several other Democrats who voted for Roberts have announced they will vote against Alito, sending the judge toward the sharpest partisan split for a Supreme Court nominee in years.

The closest margin for victory for a justice in modern history is Thomas’ 52-48 vote in 1991. At that time, 11 Democrats broke with their party and supported President George H.W. Bush’s nominee.

Both Republicans and Democrats are preparing to use Alito as a campaign issue. Republicans say the Democratic filibuster of lower-court judges helped them knock off former Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota two years ago.

If Democrats want to make judges a campaign issue, “we welcome that debate on our side. We’ll clean your clock,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

More than half, 54 percent, in a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll said they thought the Senate should vote to confirm Alito. That is up slightly from early January before his confirmation hearings.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., also warned that Republicans would remember a party-line Alito vote in future Supreme Court nominations, noting that many Republicans voted for Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who were nominated by President Clinton.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said things are different from when the Senate considered Breyer and Ginsburg, who were confirmed 87-9 and 96-3, respectively. “There was not the polarization within America that is there today, and not the defined move to take this court in a singular direction,” she said.

Copy the Story Link