Obama to Nominate Sotomayor to SCOTUS
American Power tips me that Obama will be announcing his pick to replace Souter today, and it will be Sonia Sotomayor. At the moment, I’ll withhold any opinion of the pick, as I don’t know anything about her.
President Obama will nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as his first appointment to the court, officials said Tuesday, and has scheduled an announcement for 10:15 a.m. at the White House.
If confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, Judge Sotomayor, 54, would replace Justice David H. Souter to become the second woman on the court and only the third female justice in the history of the Supreme Court. She also would be the first Hispanic justice to serve on the Supreme Court.
The president reached his decision over the long Memorial Day weekend, aides said, but it was not disclosed until Tuesday morning when he informed his advisers of his choice less than three hours before the announcement was scheduled to take place.
Mr. Obama telephoned Judge Sotomayor at 9 p.m. on Monday, officials said, advising her that she was his choice to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Later Monday night, Mr. Obama called the three other finalists — Judge Diane P. Wood of Chicago, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Solicitor General Elena Kagan — to inform them that he had selected Judge Sotomayor.
White House officials worked into the night to prepare for the announcement, without knowing who it would be.
Tom Goldstein has an interesting take on the dynamics of the pick at the SCOTUS blog.
We know the ACLU broke from their supposed non-partisanship to oppose the last nominees. I’ll bet they don’t do it this time around. She is female, a minority, and a lefty so she should meet all the qualifications Democrats need.
Good news! She meets Obama’s criteria of “empathy”!
Apparently she does not believe in blindfolds or scales, either. She
“…gave a speech declaring that the ethnicity and sex of a judge ‘may and will make a difference in our judging.’ In her speech, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion — often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day O’Connor — that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases.
“’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…’”
Race and gender are the determining — and supposedly deterministic — ingredients that govern her thinking. I say “supposedly deterministic” because that is what she chooses to allow into her thinking.
She’s no Judge Judy. And certainly no Justice Clarence Thomas. The New York Times wrote:
“This month…a video surfaced of Judge Sotomayor asserting in 2005 [during a panel discussion for law students] that a ‘court of appeals is where policy is made.’ She then immediately adds: ‘And I know — I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because we don’t make law. I know. Okay. I know. I’m not promoting it. I’m not advocating it. I’m — you know.’”
No, I don’t know. I doubt if any of the other panelists or any of the law students knew, either. But one doesn’t need to be a mind reader or an empath to make an educated guess. Sotomayor makes it clear what she knows:
“…[H]er remarks at Berkeley, which were published by the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, went further, asserting that judges’ identities will affect legal outcomes.
“’Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultures differences,’ she said, for jurists who are women and nonwhite, ‘our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.’”
So the only question that remains is…what will Republicans do? Fight to block, or give her a pass?
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Posted by Jay on May 26, 2009 9:07 am
» Filed Under ACLU, Activist Judges, News, Politics As Usual, Racism, liberalism
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