In the News
May 27, 2009 |
Hartford Courant (CT)
"President Barack Obama made a politically astute move — and a great choice — in nominating Sonia Sotomayor for the nation's highest court.... she'll be questioned about a 2005 remark stating the obvious, that "policy is made" in appeals courts."
May 27, 2009 |
Chicago Sun Times
"the seldom acknowledged reality is that all jurists -- white males included -- brings to their deliberations the experiences of a lifetime, whether they know it or not. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made the point beautifully recently when discussing the case of a 13-year-old Arizona girl who had been strip-searched by school officials." Sotomayor "has shown herself to be anything but an agenda-driven liberal activist, ruling on the same side as a Republican colleague 95 percent of the time."
May 27, 2009 |
Santa Fe New Mexican
"Sotomayor's record of following judicial precedent, and of hard questions for lightly prepared lawyers, should withstand a storm of nit-picking. ...She's the ideal choice to fill Justice David Souter's position on our nation's highest court."
May 27, 2009 |
St. Petersburg Times
"Coupling the political realities with Sotomayor's impeccable credentials, her path to confirmation should be predictably noisy but relatively smooth
May 27, 2009 |
Boston Globe
"Sotomayor has made her reputation not on hot-button social issues but on matters ranging from environmental regulation to the baseball business.... conservative groups have seized upon an offhand remark in 2005 - her description of federal appeals courts as the place "where policy is made" - as evidence that Sotomayor would legislate from the bench. The attack is disingenuous; appellate judges by necessity guide lower courts among competing interpretations of often ambiguous laws. Sotomayor's critics would fault her for even acknowledging the power that appellate judges wield. ... Short of any unexpected revelations about her record or her philosophy, though, the Senate should confirm Sonia Sotomayor."
May 27, 2009 |
The Times of Trenton
"Judge Sotomayor's record, and her life, demonstrate those qualities President Barack Obama sought in an nominee: the "quality of empathy" as "an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes," as well as "somebody who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our constitutional traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role." ...Judge Sotomayor would also do honor to the Supreme Court of the United States."
May 27, 2009 |
San Diego Union-Tribune
"It's past time the high court had a Latino justice, and the president will be remembered and appreciated forever for realizing this. Obama's decision is also strong on its basic merits."
May 27, 2009 |
Houston Chronicle
"In her 16 years as a federal judge and involvement in thousands of rulings, Sotomayor has established a track record as a conscientious, moderate judge ...Measured against previous Supreme Court selections, Sotomayor clearly offers the qualifications to serve on the high court. She has more judicial experience than any of the current justices had when they joined the court, and she has a track record of well-reasoned judicial opinions. She has already been vetted twice for presidential nominations and approved by the U.S. Senate, winning the votes of nine Republicans who will consider her for the Supreme Court. Texas Sen. John Cornyn... commented that the judge “must prove her commitment to impartially deciding cases based on the law rather than her own personal politics, feelings and preferences.” In nearly two decades on the bench, the judge has done that ... In the upcoming hearings, it is Cornyn and other GOP senators who must prove that they can rise above their own personal politics, feelings and preferences in fairly judging Sotomayor."
May 27, 2009 |
Chicago Tribune
"she has to bring the qualities that make an excellent judge. The evidence so far suggests that she is up to the job."
May 26, 2009 |
American Constitution Society Blog
"This criticism confuses empathy with sympathy. It also misunderstands the judge's role. Empathy is the capacity to understand the perspective of another. It is an essential attribute for living in the social world, and a crucial component of legal judgment. Judges need to understand multiple perspectives.... Justices interpret the Constitution in light of their assumptions about how the world works. A range of backgrounds and life experiences will increase the odds that those assumptions are challenged when they are off-base, or at least that no judge assumes that his or her own perspective is universal. Supreme Court justices, like the rest of us, make better decisions in an atmosphere of lively debate than in an echo chamber."
May 26, 2009 |
Boston Globe
"empathy is not sympathy. It doesn't require that we take sides. Nor is it an emotional shortcut that upends all legal reasoning to declare a winner. Empathy is rather the ability to imaginatively enter into the experience of others. As Harvard law professor Carol Steiker says, "We think of this as central to moral reasoning of any kind." How else to understand such moral basics as the Golden Rule? The capacity to recognize another person's reality is not just liberal. The conservative jurist Richard Posner has described empathy as an important instrument in a judge's tool kit. It doesn't trump reason, it informs reason."
May 26, 2009 |
Pocono Record
PFAW's Michael Keegan: "as the Warren Court made clear, a wide range of backgrounds doesn't just encourage different decisions, it encourages better ones as well."
May 26, 2009 |
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"There is little doubt that Sonia Sotomayor, 54, qualifies. ... we say of Ms. Sotomayor what we said of Mr. Roberts: The appointee has had a long and distinguished legal career [and is] undeniably, professionally and temperamentally suited to the job."
May 26, 2009 |
Dallas Morning News
"Judging from her inspiring personal story, her top-flight academic credentials and what former colleagues and law clerks describe as both her intellect and – yes – her empathy for the downtrodden, U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor deserves to be on the Supreme Court."
May 26, 2009 |
San Gabriel Valley [CA] Tribune
"First off, you have to like a judge nominated to different federal benches first by President George H.W. Bush and then by President Barack Obama, and was frequently mentioned as a potential Supreme Court nominee for a Republican president."
May 26, 2009 |
Newsday
"If confirmed, Sotomayor would join another New Yorker, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, putting two women on the court for the first time since Sandra Day O'Connor retired in 2006. And whether her ethnicity and sex matter will and should be at the core of the debate at her confirmation hearings this summer.
Sotomayor and Obama feel life experiences make a difference in how a judge approaches a case, and yesterday the president cited her growing up poor in the Bronx as a factor in his pick. Sotomayor has said that "personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.""
May 26, 2009 |
Fort Worth Star-Telegram [TX]
"Washington, D.C., lawyer Tom Goldstein, who runs www.scotusblog.com, has examined her 400 appellate opinions and called them "thorough, well-reasoned and clearly written." He wrote that "there just isn’t any remotely persuasive evidence that Judge Sotomayor acts lawlessly or anything of the sort." "
May 26, 2009 |
Los Angeles Times
"Judge Sonia Sotomayor would bring sterling credentials and deep life experience to the Supreme Court."
May 26, 2009 |
Oregonian
"parallels reflect Obama's search for a nominee possessing not only a rigorous intellect and mastery of the law, but also "an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live." Sotomayor appears to be a superbly qualified, centrist nominee."
May 26, 2009 |
National Catholic Reporter
"Judge Sotomayor is a moderate. As a consequence, she is just as likely to be attacked from left as from right. That's probably not what President Obama means by common ground, but one can admire him for finding a woman seemingly so capable of adhering to the law rather than her personal opinion, and for on occasion, even resolving cases contrary to the president's own policy perspectives.""
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