In the News
Jun 10, 2009 |
Politico
Senate Republicans eyed two new lines of attack Wednesday in their bid to slow-walk the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have the option of delaying the panel’s vote on Sotomayor for up to a week, and the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee said that he was open to the option.
“Those kind of things could happen, yes,” Jeff Sessions, the Judiciary Committee ranking Republican, told POLITICO when asked about the possibility of using the delay tactic.
Jun 10, 2009 |
National Journal
Last year, Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2d Circuit ruled that the search was improper, writing for a divided panel that the search warrant was based on "fallacious inferences" about Falso's involvement with the porn site that "[fell] short of establishing probable cause."
But the decision did not mean that Falso could return to drawing draughts at his bars in Cortland. Both establishment have closed, and Falso, 68, is in federal prison at Allenwood, Pa., with 22 more years to go.
That's because Sotomayor also ruled that, in spite of the improper search, the evidence obtained should not be suppressed. Asserting that the judge who issued the search warrant was not "knowingly or recklessly misled," she invoked the "good-faith exception" rule of U.S. v. Leon, a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court precedent that allows otherwise tainted evidence to be admitted.
Jun 10, 2009 |
New York Times
In case anyone missed it, Senate Republicans believe that Democrats are trying to rush the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
And after getting blind-sided on Tuesday by the Democrats’ announcement that confirmation hearings would begin on July 13, Republicans continued to vent their fury on Wednesday, and focused on the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, as a specific target of their ire.
Jun 10, 2009 |
Washington Post
The rap on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's ruling in the New Haven firefighters case is that she supposedly looked at the race of the parties and chose sides. The reality is a lot more complicated than the cries of "quota queen" acknowledge.
Ricci v. DeStefano is the proverbial hard case -- and maybe Sotomayor and her colleagues made bad law in denying white firefighters the promotions for which they had qualified based on test scores. We'll find out soon enough when the Supreme Court rules.
But if the appeals court got it wrong, the more accurate explanation may be found in the intricate minuet dictated by federal anti-discrimination law.
Jun 10, 2009 |
NPR
Conservative efforts to frame a coherent case against the nation's first Hispanic nominee took on new urgency Tuesday, after Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced that Sotomayor's confirmation hearings will begin July 13, months earlier than many GOP leaders had wanted.
Jun 10, 2009 |
USA Today
Alberto Gonzales' ears must be burning.
In the two weeks since President Obama nominated U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, conservatives have repeatedly used the shoddy treatment of the former attorney general by Senate Democrats and some in the news media to justify trashing the woman who might become the nation's first Latina Supreme Court justice.
Jun 9, 2009 |
New York Times
After consulting closely with the White House, Senate Democrats announced Tuesday that hearings on Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court would begin on July 13, infuriating Republicans who said that they had been blind-sided and that the timetable would recklessly short-circuit the review process.
Jun 9, 2009 |
Washington Post
Eight national law enforcement groups today endorsed the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, saying the former prosecutor is tough but compassionate judge who has performed ably on the front lines of the nation's criminal justice system.
Joined by Vice President Biden, the law enforcement officials announced their support for Sotomayor at an event at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House.
Jun 9, 2009 |
The Associated Press
Senate Republicans are protesting Democrats' decision to schedule confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for July 13, saying they need more time to review her record.
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, says the date is too early and unrealistic. GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is accusing Democrats of using "heavy-handed" tactics. He says their actions threaten the cooperation the Senate runs on.
The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, announced the timetable Tuesday without giving Republicans notice he was doing so after private negotiations with Sessions yielded no bipartisan agreement on a date.
Jun 9, 2009 |
New York Times
In the years since, she has given a series of speeches that have made her a poster child for identity politics. In these speeches, race and gender take center stage. It’s not only the one comment about a wise Latina making better decisions than a white male; it’s the whole litany. If you just read these speeches you might come away with the impression that she was a racial activist who is just using the judicial system as a vehicle for her social crusade.
And yet her history and conversations with her colleagues suggest this is not the main story. If you look at the whole record, you come away with the impression that Sotomayor is a hard-working, careful-though-unspectacular jurist whose primary commitment is to the law.
Jun 9, 2009 |
National Journal
My quick reaction to the July 13 timetable just announced by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is that Republicans probably don't have much basis for disputing it. As Leahy's statement details, the timetable he is using gives the Republicans about as much time as Democrats had to prepare for the hearings of John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
In addition, in the case of Roberts and to some extent that of Alito, it took time to obtain documents the nominees had authored as Justice Department officials during prior Republican administrations. Since Judge Sonia Sotomayor has never worked for the executive branch, it appears that all or virtually all significant documents written by her as a government official -- including her judicial opinions -- are already public, with the exception of her time as an assistant DA in New York City. (Internal memoranda Sotomayor has written for her colleagues or clerks while on the bench will presumably be considered confidential, as has been true of past nominees.)
Jun 9, 2009 |
Politico
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy’s move to set a July 13 start date for Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination hearings has infuriated Republicans, who are threatening to slow walk every step of the confirmation so they can have more time to dig through her judicial and personal history.
The aggressive scheduling move — carried out without informing Republicans on the Judiciary Committee — threatens to harm the decent rapport the panel has had since Sotomayor’s nomination last month. Some Republicans, like Tom Coburn of Oklahoma have already threatened to boycott the confirmation hearings.
"I don't think it’s a good way to begin the proceedings,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, who added that he was “surprised” by Leahy’s move. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Republican Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) both took to the Senate floor to criticize the hearing schedule.
Jun 9, 2009 |
Washington Post
There is something profound, but also something superficial, about the debate that occurs every time a Supreme Court justice is nominated. The debate is profound because it probes the delicate role of an independent judiciary in a democracy. But it becomes superficial when it turns into an argument over whether judges should be making law or simply interpreting it. For a nominee, the safe answer is that the Supreme Court should interpret law, not make it. It would be refreshing, however, if the nominee acknowledged that courts, including the Supreme Court, make law all the time -- and then explain how they do so.
Jun 9, 2009 |
Washington Examiner
Most sane Americans are sick of identity politics. More's the pity, then, that race and gender will likely take center stage in the coming Supreme Court fight. If so, Sonia Sotomayor can hardly cry victim: She's fed the fire by repeatedly suggesting that women and minorities read the Constitution differently than white males. That sentiment is an affront to the rule of law, but, surprisingly, it doesn't seem to be reflected in Sotomayor's own record. She's never been a reliable vote for pro-choice litigants, and, despite her "wise Latina" empathy, she rejected 80 percent of the race discrimination claims that came before her as an appellate judge. It's a shame to watch another confirmation battle cover the same tired old territory.
Jun 9, 2009 |
Los Angeles Times
Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to become an associate justice on the Supreme Court were set for July 13, a victory for the White House, which has been pushing for early consideration.
The committee hearings come soon enough to probably allow the full Senate to consider the nomination before the summer recess in August. That would mean that Sotomayor could hire a staff and take her court seat in time to be a full participant in the Supreme Court's fall term.
Jun 9, 2009 |
Miami Herald
Some slivers of my past: A dust storm. A one-room schoolhouse. The teacher who gave me boxing gloves.
This imagery might not evoke of the U.S. Senate, but it represents experiences that have shaped me as a person, and by consequence a U.S. senator. Abraham Lincoln's childhood in a cabin shaped his character as a future president. Thurgood Marshall's elementary school teachers would have never guessed that punishing him to copy the Constitution would inspire him to live by that document.
Jun 9, 2009 |
Politico
Having lost the battle over academic qualifications and intelligence, critics continue to claim that she is a judicial activist in the hopes of gaining traction. If the critics had done their homework and read her decisions before labeling her, they would find that she is not an extreme ideologue and does not bring an agenda to her cases. Even the one case the critics use to support their claim, Ricci v. DeStefano, was a unanimous, unsigned opinion by the three-judge panel, and the panel adopted the detailed decision of the district court, which applied existing law. One cannot fairly conclude the 2nd Circuit panel’s decision was an exercise of judicial activism.
The fact is that Sotomayor does not overreach and has objected when, in her opinion, the 2nd Circuit has acted expansively. For example, she objected when the 2nd Circuit held in its 2007 en banc decision in Lin v. U.S. Department of Justice that the federal statute providing refugee status to applicants claiming forced abortions or involuntary sterilization did not automatically apply to their spouses, boyfriends or fiancés. In her concurring opinion, she argued that the court unnecessarily applied its holding to spouses when the case itself involved unmarried people.
Jun 9, 2009
As Supreme Court hopeful Sonia Sotomayor continues her Senate meet-and-greets this week, Republicans will be working to sharpen their critique of the nominee by combing through her responses to written questions and record as a lawyer and judge.
Jun 8, 2009 |
National Journal
A new poll finds that while Americans in each of four geographic regions generally approve of Sonia Sotomayor's nomination, her support is weakest in the South.
The Marist Poll, which queried 1,028 registered voters June 1-3, found that Sotomayor had 44 percent approval and 35 percent disapproval in the Republican-heavy South, compared to 68/18 in the Northeast, 58/25 in the Midwest and 56/28 in the West.
Perhaps suggesting a mixture of discontent and disinterest, respondents in the South also had the highest percentage saying they were unsure: 21 percent. The left-leaning Northeast, which got a little bluer in the last presidential race and congressional elections, recorded the lowest disapproval rate at 14 percent.
Jun 8, 2009 |
The Associated Press
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor hobbled through a packed day of meetings on Capitol Hill Monday after breaking her ankle in an early morning airport stumble, then boarding a flight from New York to Washington to visit senators who will vote on her confirmation.
The federal appeals court judge, who has been keeping a busy set of appointments with lawmakers, tripped while rushing for her plane at New York's LaGuardia Airport. The White House said she suffered a small fracture to her right ankle.
Sotomayor made the meetings with senators despite her injury. She entered the Capitol for a meeting with Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, on crutches, wearing a white cast covered at the foot with a black soft bootie. Asked how she was feeling, Sotomayor said, "I feel fine, thank you."
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