WASHINGTON — Mounting a final withering attack on a man who is all but guaranteed to take a seat on the Supreme Court, witnesses spoke out against Judge Samuel Alito on Friday, calling his conservative views "dangerous" and his potential effect on the High Court "troubling."

"I urge you to reject his nomination," pleaded Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla., 20th District), charging that Alito's appeals court rulings show a blatant disregard for individual rights. "I ask you to consider that Judge Alito will replace a nominee who is only one of two female Supreme Court Justices."

With a 55-seat Republican majority in the Senate, Alito is almost certain to replace retiring Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

"I intend to vote to support Judge Alito's nomination to associate justice to the Supreme Court, and I do not do that as a matter of party-line loyalty," Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) announced at the conclusion of the hearings on Friday.

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Chairman Specter has asked the committee of 10 Republicans and 8 Democrats to vote on Alito by Jan. 17, in order to send the nomination to the full Senate for a final vote by Jan. 20.

But Democrats want to delay the committee vote, and it's not clear yet whether a compromise will be reached when the committee meets on Tuesday.

At least two senators — Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) — have already signaled that they will vote "no" on Alito's confirmation.

Chief Justice John Roberts received "yes" votes from just three committee Democrats, but was confirmed 78-22 by the full Senate.

Alito is likely to receive a narrower margin of victory.

Hard look at Alito

In a full week of hearings that brought tears, threats, and sometimes laughter to a typically somnific process, Alito spoke without notes or prompting from legal aides as he answered — and demurred — to some 700 questions from senators.

He was not present for the witness testimony.

Committee members invited six panels of 33 witnesses to testify over two days on behalf of and in opposition to Alito's bid for a High Court seat.

American Bar Association representatives explained how they came to a unanimous "well qualified" rating, the highest given, to the nominee.

A panel of judges who currently sit with Alito on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals — including Maryanne Trump Berry, sister of Donald Trump — defended Alito's integrity and rulings on the bench.

Harvard Law School professor and former U.S. Solicitor General Charles Fried commended his legal acumen and defended him as a mainstream, albeit "right-bank mainstream," nominee.

But Alito suffered sharp criticisms from representatives from the NAACP, abortion-rights groups, and high-profile legal scholars.

Duke University Law School Professor Erwin Chemerinsky suggested that Alito's memos from his work in the Reagan administration and his speeches in recent years show "a very troubling pattern of great deference for executive authority."

"I don't find anything to indicate that he will be enforcing checks and balances," Chemerinsky said.

Alabama lawyer Fred Gray, renowned for representing Rosa Parks in 1955 and being Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s first civil-rights attorney, asked the committee to carefully scrutinize Alito's record and his remarks in a 1985 job application stating he disagreed with "Warren Court decisions, particularly in the areas of criminal procedure, the Establishment Clause and reapportionment."

"He is in effect saying that he would turn the clock back," Gray said.

Kate Michelman, former president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) warned of a return to "back-alley abortions," and described a past personal experience as a young mother of three, facing an unwanted pregnancy just as her husband abandoned her.

Michelman decried an era that forced her to comply with a law requiring her to seek out and notify her husband before she could get an abortion.

She pointed to Alito's 1991 dissenting opinion in Casey v. Planned Parenthood, when he voted to uphold a Pennsylvania spousal-notification law.

"In Judge Alito's approach to the law, there is neither justice nor dignity," Michelman charged.

But a former Alito law clerk defended him as an open-minded jurist.

"I have never seen anything that led me to believe he had an agenda," Hofstra University Law School professor Nora Demleitner told the committee.

Alito could be swayed by compelling arguments, Demleitner said, as she had seen him change his mind after listening to his 3rd Circuit colleagues and would be similarly affected by his future colleagues on the Supreme Court.

"He will be open-minded. He will listen," Demleitner said. "He always listens. And he can be moved."