Results tagged “confirmationhearings”

With the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings over, a few Republican Senators have indicated their support for President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, federal judge Sonia Sotomayor. CBS News reports that Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) said she was "clearly qualified to serve on the Supreme Court," while Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Florida) said he takes "great pride in her historic achievement." And Sen. Arlen Specter, the former Republican turned Democrat, said Sotomayor had "displayed intellect, restraint and judicial demeanor." Last night, The Daily Show's Wyatt Cenac visited the South Bronx native's high school, Cardinal Spellman, to "expose [her] gang ties and racist affiliations by talking to her former classmates." See video after the jump:

After her nomination to the Supreme Court in May, Sonia Sotomayor will begin her confirmation hearings on Monday. The Daily News reports that among the "A-list of cops, prosecutors and pols" to testify are Mayor Bloomberg, former Yankee pitcher David Cone, Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau (her first boss), and ex-FBI director Louis Freeh. Cone was the union rep during the 1994 baseball strike and Freeh was a fellow U.S. District Court judge; Freeh told NPR, "I haven't read anything in her opinions that would make me think, from a conservative point of view, that there is anything 'radical' or off the mainstream." As for coverage of the hearings, they will be broadcast live on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News and will be available on various online news sites.

Sonia Sotomayor has resigned from an all-women's club she belonged to in order to avoid one more issue that could come up during her confirmation hearings. Sotomayor was part of the 115 member of the Belizean Grove, which bills itself as women's answer to the 130-year-old all-male Bohemian Club, whose members once included Chief Justice Earl Warren. In a letter to Democratic Senators Patrick Leahy Jeff Sessions, Sotomayor said, "I believe the Belizean Grove does not practice invidious discrimination and my membership did not violate the Judicial Code of Ethics, but I do not want questions about this to distract anyone from my qualifications and record." Both Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor belong to all-women's groups. Republicans say that they were not planning to object to Sotomayor's involvement, but merely highlight it the way Democrats have done previous nominee's inclusion in similar all-male organizations. Sotomayor may also have been giving Republicans less ammunition if they bring up her speech contrasting Latina women and white men.

The Senate Judiciary Committee announced that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings would begin on July 13. However, Politico reports that Republicans are "infuriated." Apparently Committee chairman Pat Leahy set the date "without informing Republicans on the Judiciary Committee"; Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), the senior Republican on the committee, said, "I don't think it’s a good way to begin the proceedings." Leahy pointed out that this schedule follows what was done for Justice John Roberts in 2005: "That agreement was reached before the Committee received the answers to the bipartisan questionnaire, and before the Committee had received any of the 75,000 pages of documents from his years working in Republican administrations. If 48 days were sufficient to prepare for that hearing, in accordance with our agreement and the initial schedule, it is certainly adequate time to prepare for the confirmation hearing for Judge Sotomayor." In the meantime, former First Lady Laura Bush, who hoped her husband would replace Sandra Day O'Connor with a female justice (instead, Samuel Alito was chosen) said of Sotomayor's nomination, "As a woman, I'm proud that there might be another woman on the court. I wish her well."