In the News
Jun 2, 2009 |
Boston Globe
The slaying of a Kansas abortion provider is further frustrating efforts by abortion foes to derail the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court, as leaders of a divided movement struggle to turn attention away from the deadly attack and back on to Sotomayor. Prominent antiabortion activists yesterday condemned the Sunday shooting death of Dr. George Tiller, one of a handful of physicians in the country who performed late-term abortions, and said they had no connection to the man police are questioning. But they also worried that the murder will damage the credibility of the antiabortion movement at a time when they are anxiously pressing for an aggressive inquiry into Sotomayor's views on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, as well as other regulations limiting the procedure.
Jun 2, 2009 |
Washington Post
Sotomayor, who is in line to become the first Latina and third woman to serve on the high court, continued to put the finishing touches on a detailed Senate questionnaire in advance of her courtesy calls to Senate leaders today. The nominee, who has been a federal appeals court judge since 1998, is also slated to meet with top members of the Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings on her nomination this summer. The 10-page form is intended to reveal the details of Sotomayor's personal finances, legal work, professional associations, speeches, and legal and other writings, and it provides a baseline for questions that senators will pose during public hearings. White House officials said the document, which requires copious backup material, should be completed "in the next couple of days."
Jun 2, 2009 |
Washington Post
"Judge Sotomayor boasts the very qualifications that these conservatives claimed Ms. Miers lacked. ... Because it is difficult to dismiss her academic credentials and her professional experience, some on the right have resorted to the politics of personal destruction. ... Above all, we'd welcome a confirmation process that sets aside rancid stereotypes and sexist assumptions in order to explore the record and philosophy of a woman whose work could affect the country for some time to come."
Jun 2, 2009 |
New York Times
"There is no level of achievement sufficient to escape the stultifying bonds of bigotry. It is impossible to be smart enough or accomplished enough. The amount of disrespect that has spattered the nomination of Judge Sotomayor is disgusting. ... Suddenly these hideously pompous and self-righteous white males of the right are all concerned about racism. They’re so concerned that they’re fully capable of finding it in places where it doesn’t for a moment exist."
Jun 2, 2009 |
Roll Call
"Sotomayor, Thomas and Alito were recognizing a truism: Experiences matter.... Sotomayor noted that, while nine white male justices reached the right decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which essentially overruled Plessy, it took their commitment to looking beyond their own experiences and their willingness to be educated by Thurgood Marshall and other great lawyers of color on why “separate but equal” isn’t equal.... Sotomayor is arguing for diversity of backgrounds and experiences on the bench and for humility in judges about their challenges and limitations. It should be uncontroversial."
Jun 2, 2009 |
Greeley Tribune [CO]
"Having a broad range of perspectives on the nation’s highest court is important. As comforting as it may be for some to view judges as automatons who simply know more about legal precedent than anyone else and make decisions based solely on dry text in law books, the simple fact is that judges — especially Supreme Court justices — must interpret the law and find meaning in gray areas."
Jun 2, 2009 |
American Prospect
Paul Waldman: "It is becoming clear that conservatives will be unable to torpedo Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court. What is also becoming clear is that they're losing an opportunity to convince the public that their vision of the courts is superior to that of progressives. And they have no one to blame but themselves."
Jun 1, 2009 |
McClatchy Newspapers
The killing of a prominent abortion doctor brought anti-abortion activists Monday to the Supreme Court and fresh attention to high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's ambiguous stance on the hot-button issue. Activists on all sides can find solace in different parts of Sotomayor's record on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. She backed some abortion clinic protesters and a restrictive Bush administration policy on international family planning. At other times, she agreed with prosecutors who were seeking to charge clinic protesters with criminal contempt. In Sotomayor's 11 years as a New York-based appellate judge, however, she's never squarely confronted the core questions surrounding abortion.
Jun 1, 2009 |
National Law Journal
Sotomayor's jurisprudence, then, is not so much objectionable because she sometimes looks at "real-world consequences" but rather because she has repeatedly shown an inability to discern the real-world consequences of her decisions. I have little faith that such nuance will emerge in the upcoming confirmation hearings, clownish spectacles in which senators genuflect to a public majority that cannot identify a single Supreme Court justice. I do, however, worry about Sotomayor's influence on the law in the decades to come.
Jun 1, 2009 |
National Review
So often, in talking about race and the American dream, we return to the words of Martin Luther King Jr. In his famous speech on the National Mall, he said to a crowd of fighters for racial justice: “We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.” He spoke of “all of God’s children” singing a song of freedom together, when the chains of racism would be broken. Those chains are not broken — indeed, they are made stronger — when we encourage division of the kind we have seen in the discussion of the Sotomayor nomination, and seen even in the 2005 nomination of Harriet Miers. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is God’s child, too — and he was also a damn good lawyer. But let’s not forget that he was ultimately nominated because, back in 2005, the “chick card” backfired. We’ll be able to sing that song King was hoping to hear when candidates aren’t proffered because of their race, sex, or even sexual orientation.
Jun 1, 2009 |
New York Times
One can only hope that the hysterical howling of right-wingers against the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is something approaching a death rattle for this profoundly destructive force in American life. It’s hard to fathom the heights of hypocrisy currently being scaled by the foaming-in-the-mouth crazies who are leading the charge against the nomination… It turns the stomach. There is no level of achievement sufficient to escape the stultifying bonds of bigotry. It is impossible to be smart enough or accomplished enough. The amount of disrespect that has spattered the nomination of Judge Sotomayor is disgusting. She is spoken of, in some circles, as if she were the lowest of the low.
Jun 1, 2009 |
Associated Press
On Tuesday, Sotomayor is expected to visit top senators, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the panel's top Republican. The roughly half-hour stops are as important for the courtly tone they set for the beginning of the Senate's debate on Sotomayor as for the few moments of candid conversation they offer senators and the nominee. A more substantive debate over her record and past will come with the impending release of the detailed questionnaire, which will likely yield fodder both for her supporters and detractors.
Jun 1, 2009 |
The Hill
Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday he doubted a final vote on Sonia Sotomayor could be held before the congressional recess in August, a day before the Supreme Court nominee visits Capitol Hill. Sessions (Ala.) said he planned to consult with Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on a schedule for Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, but repeatedly said he disagrees with the need for the process to conclude by the end of July. The Obama administration is urging a vote before August to allow Sotomayor the chance to be ready for the Court’s October work session.
Jun 1, 2009 |
New York Times
A coalition of conservative group leaders and opinion leaders has signed a letter calling on Senate Republicans to filibuster President Obama’s Supreme Court choice, Judge Sonia Sotomayor. A draft the letter was obtained by The New York Times. “We request that you will lead 40 or more senators to participate in a great debate that highlights all the issues that come to the fore with a Supreme Court nomination,” says the letter, addressed to Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader from Kentucky. The conservatives say their intent is not to kill the nomination, as Democrats used the tactic, but rather to provide for lengthier debate on its merits.
Jun 1, 2009 |
Post-Tribune [IN]
"The tenacity she's shown in life, along with the remarkable experience she's earned, could make no better candidate. Yet, there is more and it is that "D" word that makes conservatives tremble: Diversity. Added diversity to the nearly all-white, male court will bring a more thoughtful process."
Jun 1, 2009 |
Talking Points Memo
"Appellate judges do "make policy," and it's an uncontroversial and even necessary piece of their job description.... They have to reflect on what the consequences will be in other cases and other contexts. They have to think about how hard or easy a rule will be to apply. They have to make a rule that will apply generally, not a rule just for one case. In other words, they "make policy." It's not the sort of policy that Congress makes. But it's policy."
Jun 1, 2009 |
Kansas City Star
"Sotomayor has spent a lifetime learning how to read people unlike herself. She has had to.... Such grounding raises a person’s emotional intelligence. It can stretch a person’s ability to think broadly. ... Sotomayor is difficult to predict because she has the ability to read the world through many people’s eyes, not simply her own."
Jun 1, 2009 |
Kansas City Star
"The conservative, white-male-dominated court needs a jurist with a more inclusive eye for justice."
May 31, 2009 |
Providence Journal
Judge Sotomayor "appears a highly capable choice who would bring some sorely needed diversity to America’s highest court."
May 31, 2009 |
Denver Post
"criticism I've read about Barack Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to replace the retiring David Souter seems to reflect more memory lapses. ... If "great empathy" was a virtue for a justice in 1991, how did it become a vice in 2009? ... Ronald Reagan, while campaigning in 1980, promised that 'one of the first Supreme Court vacancies in my administration will be filled by the most qualified woman I can find,'"
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