Obama hits home run with Sotomayor

By Weekly Archive On Jun 3, 2009

By Bill Press

Maybe I just have too much empathy. But I admit shedding a couple of tears, standing in the East Room of the White House and watching the first African-American president of the United States nominate the first Latina to the U.S. Supreme Court. Anyone who doesn’t value the historic significance of that moment doesn’t understand what America’s all about.

As Obama’s first nominee to the court, Sonia Sotomayor is an inspired choice. Most importantly, she is exceptionally well-qualified for the post. After serving as both assistant district attorney and corporate litigator, she was nominated to the federal district court in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush and presided over some 450 cases. In 1998, President Bill Clinton elevated her to the federal appeals court, where she’s participated in more than 3,000 decisions and authored 380 opinions, only five of which have been overturned by the Supreme Court.

No one can doubt, or match, her legal qualifications. As President Obama noted in his introduction, “Walking in the door, she would bring more experience on the bench, and more varied experience on the bench, than anyone currently serving on the United States Supreme Court had when they were appointed.”

On top of her professional resume, Sotomayor has a compelling life story: raised by a single mother in a public housing project in the East Bronx, diagnosed with diabetes at age 8, working her way to head of her class at Princeton, editor of the Yale Law Review, confirmed twice by the Senate, and now — the Supreme Court.

The power of the case for Sotomayor’s confirmation is best revealed by the weakness of the three arguments right-wingers make against her: she’s a racist, a reverse racist, and an activist judge.

As evidence of her “legislating from the bench,” conservatives cite a statement made in 2005 on a panel at Duke University Law School that the “court of appeals is where policy is made.” Read in context, it’s clear that Sotomayor was explaining to future law clerks the difference between the kinds of cases they’d handle in a circuit court vs. an appellate court — which does, indeed, resolve policy disputes. No critic has yet cited even one case in which Sotomayor actually did legislate from the bench.

She’s a reverse racist, insist her critics, based on the case of Ricci v. DeStefano, now before the Supreme Court. Several white New Haven firefighters scored high on a promotions exam, but the city dropped the test after black firefighters performed poorly. White firefighters sued the city for reverse discrimination. Sotomayor joined two other judges in siding with the city. Without ruling on the merits of the firemen’s case, they held that the law was clear and they had no choice but to follow the law. Agree or disagree, her decision badly undermines the argument that she legislates from the bench.

Finally, Sotomayor’s accused of being a racist for telling a 2001 audience: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Racist? Again, context is important.

She was speaking at a University of California, Berkeley symposium on the presence of Latinos and Latinas in the judiciary — specifically, on their role in deciding race and sex discrimination cases. Even wise men like Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Benjamin Cardozo voted to uphold both sex and race discrimination, she pointed out. Certainly, to those kinds of cases, she argued, a Latina would bring a different, and more relevant, personal experience — and therefore be capable of making better decisions.

Of course, conservatives don’t want to hear anything about her personal life because, they argue, the fact that she’s a Latina and grew up poor is totally irrelevant. Funny. That’s not what Sen. Orrin Hatch said back in 2005, when George W. Bush named Alberto Gonzales his attorney general.

As reported by Huffington Post’s Sam Stein, then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Hatch said: “Look, this is not just any nomination. …This is the first Hispanic ever nominated for that position. … And to have this man come from the most humble of circumstances … and not to give him this opportunity when he is fully qualified for it, I think, would be a travesty.”

Will Republicans give this Latina the same due consideration they gave that Latino? Certainly, not to do so would be a travesty.

Bill Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a new book, “Train Wreck: The End of the Conservative Revolution (and Not a Moment Too Soon).” You can hear “The Bill Press Show” at his Web site: billpressshow.com. His email address is: bill@billpress.com.