Sotomayor Confirmation Hearings Begin Today

Photograph of President Obama and Sotomayor in May by Alex Brandon/AP

Federal judge Sonia Sotomayor will face grilling from the Senate Judiciary Committee today as she begins confirmation hearings for a seat on the Supreme Court. The Obama administration is confident that the Bronx native will become the third woman to sit on the nation's highest court: The Daily News reports, "The White House released a photo of a casually dressed Obama flashing a full-grill grin during a call to wish the Bronx-raised judge good luck" and notes that Senator Chuck Schumer said, "She has wowed people [on both sides of the political aisle]," even suggesting she may get more than 78 yea votes.

However, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) referred to Sotomayor's "wise Latina" remarks on Face the Nation, "Every judge must be committed every day to not let their personal politics, their ethnic background, their biases, sympathies, influence the nature of their decision-making process. When you show empathy for one party...you necessarily show a bias against another group."

However, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg told the NY Times Magazine, "Think of how many times you’ve said something that you didn’t get out quite right, and you would edit your statement if you could. I’m sure she meant no more than what I mean when I say: Yes, women bring a different life experience to the table. All of our differences make the conference better. That I’m a woman, that’s part of it, that I’m Jewish, that’s part of it, that I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and I went to summer camp in the Adirondacks, all these things are part of me."

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By Jen Chung in News on July 13, 2009 9:06 AM

Comments [rss]

artemisT

Another gun grabber

http://www.infowars.com/sotomayor-on-the-supreme-court-a-gun-grabbers-dream-come-true/

SP

Linking to a racist conspiracy theorist's website will not win you any credibility.

ANGRYGOD11

With 60 Democratic senators and some Republicans fearful of their reelection with a Latino backlash, there's too much talk about this nomination.

All Sotomayor needs is a simple majority vote. Unless they find chopped children in the trunk of her car, she's moving on up.

SP

Also, Republicans pointing fingers at others nd accusing them of being racists is quite funny. Especially Mr. Sessions, the outright bigot whose only objection to the KKK is that he heard some of them are pot smokers.

SP

Current Justice Samuel Alito was reversed on at least four occasions before his confirmation to the Supreme Court and received a "rebuke" as an appeals court judge by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whom he replaced.

Furthermore, it also would not be unprecedented for the court to reverse a ruling reached by a justice before his or her elevation to the Supreme Court. As an appeals court judge, Chief Justice John Roberts was a member of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which, in its July 2005 unanimous ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, allowed a military commission to try Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Guantánamo Bay detainee.

Roberts was confirmed as chief justice several months later, in September 2005. Then, in 2006, the Supreme Court reversed the circuit court's decision on a 5-3 ruling.

Moreover, contrary to the myth that it is unusual for the Supreme Court to reverse federal appellate court decisions, data compiled by SCOTUSblog since 2004 show that the Supreme Court has reversed more than 67 percent of the federal appeals court cases it considered each year, except 2007, when it reversed federal appeals court cases 61 percent of the time.

-MediaMatters.org

Bernie Madoff-Goetz

Question #1: How do you feel about the fact that your soon-to-be co-workers just overturned your own racist finding in the case of those CT firemen?