Thursday, July 02, 2009
Supreme Court Decision Raises Many Questions
Should fear of a disparate-impact lawsuit be enough to allow an employer to engage in expressly race-based decisionmaking? Does Judge Sotomayor continue to believe that the city of New Haven should have been allowed to scrap the results of its firefighter exam on the basis of race?In response to media reports that Republicans have been "muted, at best," Cornyn states:
I respectfully disagree. My response, as well as the response of many my colleagues, was consistent with the way we have treated Judge Sotomayor throughout this process. We have pledged not to pre-judge or pre-confirm. You can trust we will have pointed questions for her on this, and many other subjects. We will pose those questions at the proper time, in the proper place: before the Judiciary Committee.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Not Sufficient Time to Review New Sotomayor Material
Just a day or so ago, we discovered that there are 300 or so boxes of additional material that has just been discovered from her time working with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund. The committee needs to have access to that material and time to work through it so we know all the facts before we vote on a person who is up for a lifetime job.One item Republicans have already found in connection with PRLDEF is a "1981 memo signed by her and two other directors of the group." In this memo, "the directors argued against reinstating the death penalty in New York state, making the case that capital punishment is racist because it is disproportionately imposed on minorities."
This is the type of material that relates directly to the job Democrats are trying to quickly slide Sotomayor into. With an additional 300 boxes of material, how can anyone be ready to say they have had sufficient time to review all of Sotomayor's material?
Monday, June 29, 2009
Poll Indicates Nearly Two Thirds of Americans Believe Firefighters Were Discriminated Against
"The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted Friday through Sunday, with 1,026 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points."
All Justices Decide Against Sotomayor
The legal position taken by the district court and adopted by Judge Sotomayor and her panel colleagues is obviously much closer to the position of Justice Ginsburg and her fellow dissenters than either is to the majority's. But even Ginsburg believes that Sotomayor applied the wrong legal standard (one overly favorable to the city): "The lower courts focused on respondents' 'intent' rather than on whether respondents in fact had good cause to act."Wendy Long echoed this sentiment in a bench memo on National Review Online where she stated, "She essentially committed judicial malpractice." Speaking to this malpractice, Long stated "that even Justice Ginsberg and the dissenters would have remanded -- undoing what Judge Sotomayor did -- confirms that Sotomayor is a far-left liberal judicial activist who ignores the law and rules on her own personal agenda, even beyond the current liberals on the Court."
Court Rules for White Firefighters over Promotions
The Supreme Court has ruled that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Reid: Vote Before August Recess
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Senator Harry Reid has announced the Senate will vote on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation prior to the August recess. According to the Senate website that would mean Sotomayor would be confirmed or rejected by August 10th.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Republican Leaders Want Answers: Will Sotomayor Uphold the Constitution?
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) stated he would like to know more about "whether Americans can count on her to uphold one of the fundamental liberties enshrined in the bill of rights: The right to keep and bear arms." Cornyn then said he would like to know more about her opinions on the Fifth Amendment. Specifically, does Sotomayor believe public takings "based on some elastic definition of public use" is Constitutional?
Another troubling issue for Republicans is whether Sotomayor will stay true to her word and follow the law or "also employ the empathy that President Barack Obama said he wants in a justice on the high court."
The work Sotomayor did for the Puerto Rico Legal Defense and Education Fund still remains deeply concerning:
"This is a group that has taken some very shocking positions with respect to terrorism," Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said.
Sessions said the group, now called Latino Justice PRLDEF, in 1990 came to the defense of Puerto Rican nationalists who 36 years earlier had wounded five lawmakers during an attack on the House while it was in session.
Tuesday, Sessions further expressed his concern by stating, "The president of the organization continued explaining, that for many people in Puerto Rico, these men were fighters for freedom and justice. So, I wonder if she agreed with that statement and if she agreed that the mayor of New York's comments were insensitive?"
Honoring their commitment to getting the answers to tough questions, Republican leaders want to let Sotomayor explain her positions to determine "whether she's truly committed to colorblind justice."
Another Red State Democrat Senator Meets with Sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor has met with another red state Democrat Senator, this time Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK). Begich's comments do not sound much like a Democrat Senator's:
"She seems to be an individual that is focused on looking at the law and interpreting what's there in front of her and not over-interpreting," Begich, D-Alaska, said Wednesday after a 45-minute meeting with Sotomayor.
Begich said he stressed to her that the right to bear arms is sacred to Alaskans -- a point emphasized last week by his fellow Alaska senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski. Begich also said he was confident Sotomayor would not "legislate from the bench."
"In Alaska, we're not anxious for activist type of judges," Begich said. "I did not get that sense from her at all, based on her history, but also based on some of the conversation."
Begich again: "She seems to be an individual who is looking at the law and interpreting what is there in front of her and not over interpreting or as I would say, legislating from the bench."
It is interesting to hear Begich use some of the same buzz words Republican Senators use when discussing their views on the Supreme Court: "activist," "legislate from the bench," and "not over interpreting."
Alaska went to McCain 68 to 38 percent. Senator Begich, barely beat the then indicted Ted Stevens, winning with less than a few thousand votes. His constituency is undoubtedly center-right, strongly supports the right to bear arms and is extremely skeptical of radical environmental policy. He will face some serious questions in Alaska if he votes for Sotomayor and she turns out to be as much of an activist on issues like the Second Amendment and the environment as many on the right believe.
So far, Begich is keeping his cards to close to chest and has not announced whether or not he plans to vote for her confirmation.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Bringing Affirmative Action to the Forefront
When looking at President Obama's short list of potential nominees for the Supreme Court position, replacing Justice Souter, there is one common denominator. The Boston Globe article also reports, "Obama's list of finalists for the court job included only women, a strong suggestion that this seat was set aside for a woman." President Obama put an emphasis on Sotomayor's compelling life story and status as the potential first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. This emphasis was evident when President Obama praised Sotomayor's 15 minute decision in the baseball strike case, attempting to portray her as a person who sticks to what she believes in. "But in portraying her as a maker of snappy decisions, quick to stand up to baseball owners, Obama also fueled a critique of Sotomayor as a woman with an agenda, ready to stick it to people who might have disrespected her while growing up."
The story that has dominated Sotomayor's nomination comes from a "connection between a candidate chosen from a list of women, touted for her race and hailed for her willingness to make gutsy decisions." After flaunting the careers and merits of his Cabinet, "the president somehow chose to present Sotomayor's race and gender as credentials in themselves."
Monday, June 22, 2009
Goodbye Belizean Grove
The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog has reported that Judge Sotomayor has left the controversial Belizean Grove organization:
Goodbye Belizean Grove: Judge Sotomayor has resigned her membership at the Belizean Grove, the all-women's group that bills itself as women's answer to the 130-year-old all-male Bohemian Club in California. In a letter to Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Judge Sotomayor said she was convinced that the club, the Belizean Grove, did not practice "invidious discrimination" and that her membership in it did not violate judicial ethics. But she said she did not want questions about it to "distract anyone from my qualifications and record." Click here for the brief AP story.
It is hard to say if her handlers in the Obama administration gave her some pressure to resign or if she was just saving herself some trouble for her confirmation hearings. However, does this really take the issue off the table? The main criticism was that her membership in the organization violated the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges. Ed Whelan, in National Review's Bench Memos, ponders whether this was the case or not. In fairness to Sotomayor, it was probably a lose-lose dilemma for her. The criticism would continue if she stayed in the organization. However, resigning makes it look like a confession that there was something improper about her membership.
