U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor didn’t earn the confirmation votes of the senators from Kansas, Oklahoma, Utah or Wyoming, but she is now the court’s designated “circuit justice” for the U.S. 10th Circuit, which includes those states as well as Colorado and New Mexico.
That will make her the justice to receive and perhaps decide certain emergency requests from the Denver-based 10th Circuit, including restraining orders and stays of execution. She’ll also participate in the 10th Circuit’s annual conferences. Though she replaced Justice David Souter on the bench, she is replacing Justice Stephen Breyer as the circuit justice.
If Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, were a U.S. senator — instead of just a candidate for the U.S. Senate — he would have voted “no” on confirming Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. His statement: “Confirming the first Hispanic-American to the Supreme Court is a historic moment for this country. Race, sex or biography alone, however, does not deem one fit to sit on the highest court in the land — rather a person’s ability and willingness to faithfully apply the Constitution to all cases before the court. Unfortunately, the Democrat majority in the Senate does not believe the latter to be true and has agreed to confirm an activist judge who believes it is acceptable to legislate from the bench and inject her personal background as a filter in deciding cases. I cannot support the confirmation of a judge who has a proven track record of neglect and disregard for our governing document. As such, I strongly support Sens. Brownback and Roberts in their opposition of Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation. We need justices who will be faithful to the Constitution and offer impartial judgment — not empathy, richness of personal experience, or subjective interpretation of international law.”
The only suspense about today’s Senate vote on the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor was how many Republicans might join the Democratic majority in supporting her. In the final 68-31 vote, nine Republicans did so — not including Kansas Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback. Some acknowledged her unprecedented 17 years of experience as a federal judge, that her decisions have been within the legal mainstream, and that the power to pick justices comes with winning a presidential election. In replacing retiring Justice David Souter, Sotomayor brings needed ethnic and gender diversity to the bench. Seeing her confirmed already puts Obama ahead of President Carter, whose presidency didn’t see a high court opening. If Obama has additional seats to fill, the ideological fight is sure to be even more fierce.
NPR and Fox News contributor Juan Williams wrote a Washington Post obituary for affirmative action, which he declared dead at age 45. He pointed to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in the New Haven, Conn., firefighters case, saying it “cut the last legal underpinnings for affirmative action. Without protection from reverse-discrimination lawsuits, virtually every instance of affirmative action can now be forever tied in a legal tangle that chokes the life out of it.” Williams concluded: “The bold national experiment that came to life 45 years ago with the equal employment section of the Civil Rights Act is now over — even if discrimination is not. It is time to think about how to deal with racial inequity without affirmative action.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., subjected Judge Sonia Sotomayor (in photo) to quite a grilling during her confirmation hearings. Yet he ended up the only Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee to support her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court today, in a 13-6 vote expected to lead to a full Senate vote next week. “I’m deciding to vote for a woman I would not have chosen,” Graham said. But it’s a “big deal” for President Obama to have nominated the first-ever Latina to the high court, he said, and “America has changed for the better with her selection.” There’s no suspense about how Kansas Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback will vote; they announced in May and June, respectively, that they would vote against her.
Columnist Jonah Goldberg raised questions about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s comment in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. Responding to a question about the lack of Medicaid abortions for poor women, Ginsburg said: “Frankly I had thought that at the time (Roe v. Wade) was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” Goldberg wrote: “Left unclear is whether Ginsburg endorses the eugenic motivation she ascribed to the passage of Roe v. Wade, or whether she was merely objectively describing it.”
“Republicans’ outrage, both real and feigned, at Sotomayor’s musings about how her identity as a ‘wise Latina’ might affect her judicial decisions is based on a flawed assumption: that whiteness and maleness are not themselves facets of a distinct identity,” columnist Eugene Robinson wrote. “Being white and male is seen instead as a neutral condition, the natural order of things. Any ‘identity’ — black, brown, female, gay, whatever — has to be judged against this supposedly ‘objective’ standard. Thus it is irrelevant if Justice Samuel Alito talks about the impact of his background as the son of Italian immigrants on his rulings — as he did at his confirmation hearings — but unforgivable for Sotomayor to mention that her Puerto Rican family history might be relevant to her work.”
The Eagle editorial board shares the view of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on U.S. Supreme Court nominations — that presidential elections matter, and that as long as a president’s nominees are highly qualified and don’t have some clear problem, they should be confirmed. That’s why the editorial board supported Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito and why, absent some new revelation, it supports nominee Sonia Sotomayor. As Graham noted during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Monday, the arguing over judicial nominations is mostly “about liberal and conservative politics” — not about qualifications and judicial record, which in Sotomayor’s case are both stellar. But it’s worth noting that this view was not shared by President Obama, who voted against Roberts and Alito when he was a U.S. senator.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee for the past two confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court, for Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005 and Justice Samuel Alito in 2006. But this time, for the hearing of nominee Sonia Sotomayor (in photo), Kansas is unrepresented on the committee (unless you count Kansas native Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa.). Yet two states have two members each: Wisconsin and Minnesota.
A group of 26 conservative leaders of the gun-rights movement this week called upon the Senate not to confirm Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. But their opposition is unlikely to get much traction, as American Bar Association this week gave Sotomayor its highest rating, and the Fraternal Order of Police and other law-enforcement organizations reiterated their support for the nominee. Chuck Canterbury, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said of Sotomayor: “She is a model jurist: tough, fair-minded and mindful of the constitutional protections afforded to all U.S. citizens.”
Will Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court be jeopardized by the court’s decision Monday overturning her ruling in the case of the New Haven, Conn., firefighters? Should it be?
The Wall Street Journal editorialized: “Ms. Sotomayor’s supporters have been at pains to argue that she has ended up on both sides of racial discrimination complaints while on the 2nd Circuit. But those examining her record can reasonably ask if the disregard she exhibited for a Title VII claim by white firefighters falls into the category of neutrality or its own kind of bias.”
The Dallas Morning News editorialized: “Yes, her panel was criticized for a one-paragraph dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims — claims the Supreme Court later recognized as significant constitutional questions. Yet one case does not a judicial philosophy make. Sotomayor has participated in hundreds of rulings from a number of benches — so many that Senate Republicans complained that they could not read them all in time to question her. They should remember that before focusing too narrowly on any single case.”
Two of the first three U.S. senators to commit to voting against the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor were Kansans: Sen. Pat Roberts on May 28 and Sen. Sam Brownback on June 24. The third is Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla. The three have more in common than geography and party: They all voted against Sotomayor’s nomination to the federal appeals bench in 1998. Her hearings don’t start until mid-July, but Brownback said last week: “In her writings, Judge Sotomayor has rejected the principle of impartiality and embraces the novel idea that a judge’s personal life story should come into play in the courtroom. I’m not sure why Judge Sotomayor believes the law is somehow different when interpreted by people of different backgrounds. I think Judge Sotomayor is absolutely wrong, and that we do a disservice to law and society when we don’t transcend our personal sympathies and prejudices.”
There are sound reasons for limiting the legal rights of public schoolchildren, and for banning prescription and even over-the-counter drugs at school. But it was a relief to see the U.S. Supreme Court draw the line today at strip-searching 13-year-old girls in search of ibuprofen — and with a strong 8-1 majority, leaving only Justice Clarence Thomas to defend the authorities at an Arizona middle school.
Ken Starr, a pillar of the conservative legal establishment, endorsed Sonia Sotomayor for the U.S. Supreme Court. That makes it even tougher for conservative groups to paint Sotomayor as a radical.
In the beginning, the Roe v. Wade decision “was more about protecting doctors than empowering women,” Kansas City Star columnist Barbara Shelly wrote. She noted how Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who wrote the 1973 opinion, was concerned that physicians not face criminal charges for acting in the best interests of their patients. “The decision vindicates the right of the physician to administer medical treatment according to his professional judgment,” Blackmun wrote in his opinion. But, Shelly wrote, the decision “has not protected physicians from determined protest groups, overzealous prosecutors and cold-blooded killers.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., suggested Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the Supreme Court nomination of Justice Sonia Sotomayor was moving too fast given her “very long record,” with 3,600 cases to go over. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings are set for July 13. McConnell didn’t rule out a GOP filibuster but added: “It’s way too early to be talking about whether or not anybody opposes this nominee.” Wonder what McConnell made of the declaration by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., on May 28 that he would vote against Sotomayor’s confirmation.
Sounds like his meeting Wednesday with Judge Sonia Sotomayor did nothing to warm Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., to her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. “I wanted to hear more from her, as I have serious concerns about her philosophy as it relates to an activist judiciary,” Brownback said in a statement. “Unfortunately, I did not hear anything in our meeting that allayed those concerns. As Chief Justice Roberts said, a justice should be an impartial umpire, not a player in the game. I am afraid Judge Sotomayor wants to be more of a player than an umpire.” If his concerns stand, Brownback, who voted against her nomination to the federal appeals court in 1998, would join Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., in the “no” column on her confirmation.
“If Sonia Sotomayor is a radical activist eager to push the law leftward or to rule according to personal whims rather than constitutional commands, she’s done an impressive job of hiding it all these years,” columnist Ruth Marcus wrote. “The amazing thing about the case against Sotomayor is how thin it is. . . . This is a woman with more years on the bench than any Supreme Court nominee in the past 100 years. During that time, you’d think even the most middle-of-the-road judge would have provided some unintentional ammunition for critics — maybe freeing an especially unsavory criminal on a supposed technicality. If Sotomayor is the judicial radical of conservative imaginings, certainly there ought to be something more in her paper trail.”
To his credit, Newt Gingrich (in photo) said he went too far in calling U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a racist based on her statement about “a wise Latina woman.” Gingrich wrote: “The word ‘racist’ should not have been applied to Judge Sotomayor as a person, even if her words themselves are unacceptable (a fact which both President Obama and his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, have since admitted).” The issue that concerns him is not racial identity politics but whether everyone is equal before the law, he said.
Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh, who also called Sotomayor a racist, has no regrets. “I’m not retracting it,” Limbaugh said on his program Wednesday, though he indicated that he might support Sotomayor if she opposed abortion rights. So apparently it’s OK to be a racist if you’re right on abortion.
It only seems as if every U.S. Supreme Court opening has always turned into a bitter partisan fight. As the New York Times’ Caucus blog reported that Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., was the first senator to say he’d vote against confirming Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, it noted that “Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia (in photo) and Anthony Kennedy, members of the court for more than two decades, were all confirmed unanimously.” Ditto former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The confirmation votes on other sitting justices: Chief Justice John Roberts, 78-22; Samuel Alito, 58-42; Clarence Thomas, 52-48; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 97-3; Stephen Breyer, 87-9; and the now-retiring David Souter, 90-9.
In arguing four years ago against Democrats filibustering President Bush’s judicial nominations, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., complained, “We are really changing the constitutional design of what it takes to basically nominate and approve any judge.” So does that mean that Roberts would oppose a GOP filibuster of President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor? If not, Ari Rabin-Havt of the Media Matters Action Network argued, Roberts “will make it undeniably clear that he is happy to use the Constitution as a political prop.”
Although Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor must withstand scrutiny from the Senate, barring some unlikely revelation of impropriety she should be confirmed expeditiously, in time to join the court for its fall term. Sotomayor satisfies President Obama’s criteria: experience, erudition and, as he put it, “a common touch and a sense of compassion, an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live.” Conservatives pounced on the empathy standard, arguing that it conflicted with a judge’s oath to “do equal right to the poor and to the rich.” But Obama’s point was that the court benefits when justices have a lived experience of the law rather than a more abstract appreciation for doctrine. Sotomayor’s experiences as a Hispanic raised in a housing project who went on to excel at Princeton and Yale don’t in themselves qualify her for the court. They do, however, complement her sterling credentials and equip her with perspectives that could illuminate legal issues that come before her. So does her experience as a trial judge, applying the often abstract rulings of the Supreme Court to particular cases. None of the eight justices she would join has comparable experience. — Los Angeles Times editorial
With his nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the U.S. Supreme Court, President Obama has abandoned all pretense of being a post-partisan president. While he may like to think of himself as a thoughtful moderate soaring above the issues that divide America, his actions reveal what hides under that hopeful lining. Presidents usually nominate judges that espouse their philosophy. So what does this nomination tell us about Obama’s true colors? Even the liberal establishment worries that Sotomayor tilts too far to the left. New Republic essayist Jeffrey Rosen reports that fellow liberals who have watched or worked with her closely “expressed questions about her temperament, her judicial craftsmanship, and . . . (they have said) she is ‘not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench.’” A suspiciously high number of her decisions have been overruled by higher courts. Wendy Long of the Judicial Confirmation Network said that record shows “she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court.” Sotomayor seems to be the most radical person ever nominated for the high court. To continue to command public respect, the Senate will have to ask her some hard questions. The simplest one to ask will be the hardest one for her to answer: Given her statements against whites and males, can she be fair to all Americans? — Washington Times editorial
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., isn’t reserving judgment on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. He’s a “no” vote now, just as he was in 1998 when she was confirmed to the federal appeals court. “I did not feel that she was appropriate on the appeals court,” Roberts told KCMO Radio in Kansas City. “Since that time she has made statements on the role of the appeals court that I think is improper and incorrect.”
He discounted Sotomayor’s ethnicity, gender and background as factors that should influence such a vote. Asked whether he risked being tagged as a “bigot” for opposing Sotomayor, who would be the first Hispanic justice and only the third woman to serve on the court, Roberts said: “I’m a Marine and nothin’ much scares me. That’s not going to be a consideration in my vote.”
Many conservative pundits are criticizing President Obama for valuing empathy in his highly qualified Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. But wanting a judge to understand the impact that rulings have on people isn’t new. President George H.W. Bush cited Clarence Thomas’ “great empathy” when announcing his nomination to the Supreme Court, Media Matters noted. And during his confirmation hearing, Thomas said that he believed he could “bring something different to the court,” in that he could “walk in the shoes of the people who are affected by what the court does.” At the time, GOP lawmakers praised this empathy. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., said that Thomas’ “compassion and understanding of the impact that the Supreme Court has on the lives of average Americans” were just as important as his legal qualifications.
President Obama has picked Sonia Sotomayor to join the U.S. Supreme Court, delivering on expectations that he’d name a woman and the court’s first Hispanic justice. It should please Republicans that she was first made a judge by President George H.W. Bush and that she once said: “I don’t believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.” But it’s awkward that one of her decisions as an appellate judge may soon be overturned by the Supreme Court: the one siding with the city of New Haven, Conn., against white firefighters who believe they were discriminated against on a promotion exam. Given the sharp partisanship in Washington, D.C., it’s hard to believe the GOP won’t mount an ideological fight over Sotomayor’s confirmation.
