US lawmakers drew battle lines on Sunday for the coming fight over a new Supreme Court justice, and demanded opponents foster a civil confirmation process. US Republicans and Democrats were geared up for a major political fight over a successor to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who announced her retirement on Friday.
Both sides urged the other to refrain from heated partisan attacks over the nomination, although such restraint is unlikely, given the high stakes.
"It is very important. This is a very high profile appointment, everybody is watching," liberal California Senator Dianne Feinstein, told Fox television.
She said she was concerned about "extraordinarily conservative" recent nominees to the appellate courts.
"I think the president would do well to reach into the mainstream to try to bring people together over this appointment and I think it's very doable," she said.
O'Connor's retirement handed President George W. Bush his first chance to reshape the ideological balance of the court, which has immense influence over the lives of Americans as it interprets the constitution.
Liberals warned that Bush not to name an "extremist" while Republicans urged him to pick a strict conservative.
But Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont told NBC a nominee "on the extreme right," who did not "unite the country," would spark a fight in the 100-member US Senate.
"You know, when you stop to think about it, if you had a justice on the Supreme Court who only got 51 votes, that's not a very good signal to the rest of the country," he said. Meanwhile, conservative Republican Senator Lindsay Graham said on Fox that only an ethical problem should stop a Bush nominee.
"To me, it'd have to be a character problem, an ethics problem, some allegation about the qualifications of the person, not an ideological bent, given what we've done in the past," he said.