Sonia Sotomayor: GOP has feared her ascent to the Supreme Court since 1998
By Max J. Castro
majcastro@gmail.com
Sonia Sotomayor is an eminent jurist, a down-to-earth person, and the Republican’s worst nightmare for more than ten years.
In nominating Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, Barack Obama hit a home run with the bases loaded. Sotomayor’s story, the Puerto Rican girl who grew up in a Bronx housing project and made it to Princeton, Yale Law School, and the Court of Appeals, could be a Hollywood script. But it’s real life.
At least as liberal as the retiring David Souter, Sotomayor is also intellectually ready to go up against the right-wing quartet on the Supreme Court. Moreover, as the first Latina to be nominated to the Court, she presents an excruciating dilemma to the right-wing Senators who are sure to challenge her during the confirmation process. Are they ready to really skewer her? Can Republicans afford any more trouble with Latinos or with women?
Pushed by their base, the Republicans won’t be able to help themselves. Defeated and demoralized, the GOP seems to have opted to circle the wagons at the expense of inclusion. Sotomayor is the kind of nominee that will give the right-wing fits as an “activist” judge, code for a jurist who does not automatically rule to uphold the status quo.
Predictably, as soon as the nomination was announced, Wendy Long, counsel to the right wing Judicial Confirmation Network, made this statement: “Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one’s sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.”
And that was just the first salvo. She is a liberal, but at least she is of the first order.
Despite the sound and fury, no one is betting that the Republicans have the votes to stop the nomination. So the more they groan and moan, the more impotent and small-minded they will appear. When Sotomayor was confirmed to the Court of Appeals in 1998, 29 Republican Senators and zero Democrats voted against her. It will be the same this time, only closer. This confirmation process promises to be just as partisan if not more so despite the fact that Sotomayor was appointed to the federal court by George H.W. Bush. She was promoted to the appellate court by Bill Clinton.
The right wing has feared the rise of Sotomayor to the Supreme Court for more than a decade. In 1998, a prolonged Senate hold kept her off the appellate court for months. Patrick Leahy said at that time:
“Last week, a lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal discussed this secret basis for the Republican hold against this fine judge. The Journal reveals that these delays are intended to ensure that Sonia Sotomayor not be nominated to the Supreme Court, although it is hard to figure out just how that is logical or sensible. In fact, how disturbing, how petty, and how shameful: Trying to disqualify an outstanding Hispanic woman judge by an anonymous hold.”
All true, but in this case, the WSJ editorial page proved to be both dastardly and prophetic.
Barring an unexpected event, the Democrats should be able to roll over Republican opposition and confirm Sotomayor. The Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy said: “I believe that Judge Sotomayor will be in the mold of Justice Souter, who understands the real-world impact of the court’s decisions, rather than the mold of the conservative activists who second-guess Congress, and who through judicial extremism undercut laws meant to protect Americans from discrimination in their jobs, their access to health care and education, and their privacy from an overreaching government. I believe Judge Sotomayor understands that the courthouse doors must be as open to ordinary Americans as they are to government and big corporations.”
Now, how sweet is that?
