May 28, 2009 we UPDATED this posting after having received an e-mail from Vice President Joe Biden’s office that we attached to the end of the original posting. We also agree to “STAND WITH SOTOMAYOR” and wonder at the logic of those in the GOP that intend to make an issue out of this nomination. We clearly feel that Obama handed them the occasion as if they had proposed receiving help in assisted suicide. Where will Cheney, Palin and Limbaugh come down on the Sotomayor vote?
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May 26, 2009 we posted the following – this after having gottten an e-mail from President Obama’s office:
President Barack Obama to Pincas
I am proud to announce my nominee for the next Justice of the United States Supreme Court: Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
This decision affects us all — and so it must involve us all. I’ve recorded a special message to personally introduce Judge Sotomayor and explain why I’m so confident she will make an excellent Justice.
Judge Sotomayor has lived the America Dream. Born and raised in a South Bronx housing project, she distinguished herself in academia and then as a hard-charging New York District Attorney.
Judge Sotomayor has gone on to earn bipartisan acclaim as one of America’s finest legal minds. As a Supreme Court Justice, she would bring more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any Justice in 100 years. Judge Sotomayor would show fidelity to our Constitution and draw on a common-sense understanding of how the law affects our day-to-day lives.
A nomination for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land is one of the most important decisions a President can make. And the discussions that follow will be among the most important we have as a nation. You can begin the conversation today by watching this special message and then passing it on:
Thank you,
President Barack Obama
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A Look at Sonia Sotomayor
WASHINGTON (May 26) — President Barack Obama chose federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor, a judge on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to become the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice on Tuesday, praising her as “an inspiring woman” with both the intellect and compassion to interpret the Constitution wisely.
Obama said Sotomayor has more experience as a judge than any current member of the high court had when nominated, adding she has earned the “respect of colleagues on the bench, the admiration of many lawyers who argue cases in her court and the adoration of her clerks, who look to her as a mentor.”
“My heart today is bursting with gratitude,” Sotomayor said after Obama’s introduction.
Poll Results
Do you think Sotomayor will win confirmation?
| Yes |
72%
|
60,900
|
| No |
15%
|
12,521
|
| I’m not sure |
13%
|
11,401
|
What do you think of Obama’s pick?
|
Thumbs up
|
62%
|
|
Thumbs down
|
38%
Tota lVotes: 91,830
|
Standing next to Obama at the White House, Sotomayor recalled a childhood spent in a housing project in the Bronx as well as her upper-echelon legal career: “I strive never to forget the real world consequences of my decisions on individuals, businesses and government.”
Barring the unexpected, Senate confirmation seems likely, given the large Democratic majority. If approved, she would join Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the second woman on the current court, the third in history. She would succeed retiring Justice David Souter.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., issued a statement saying he looked forward “to working with both Democrats and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee to confirm Judge Sotomayor as the first Hispanic and the third woman to sit on the court.”
Senate Republicans pledged to give her a fair hearing, and some questioned whether she would base decisions on her personal feelings, rather than constitutional principles. Given her background, any effort to filibuster her nomination could carry political risks, since Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment of the population and an increasingly important one politically.
Sotomayor would be unlikely to alter the ideological balance of the court, since Souter generally sides with the liberals on key 5-4 rulings. But at 54, she is a generation younger that Souter, and liberal outside groups hope she will provide a counterpoint to some of the sharply worded conservative rulings.
Introducing his choice, Obama said, “Along the way, she’s faced down barriers, overcome the odds and lived out the American dream that brought her parents here so long ago.”
The president called on the Senate to confirm Sotomayor before the court begins its new term in October, and noted pointedly that she has already won Senate approval twice in her career. Seven of the Senate’s current Republicans voted to confirm her for the appeals court in 1998.
She was nominated a federal judge by a Republican, President George H.W. Bush, then elevated to the appeals court by a Democrat, Bill Clinton. Senate Republicans slow-walked her confirmation more than a decade ago, in part because she was viewed even then as a potential pick for the Supreme Court.
The White House announcement ceremony was a picture of diversity, the first black president, appointing the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, joined by Vice President Joe Biden, who is white.
Justice David Souter plans to retire from the U.S. Supreme Court at the end of the court’s term in June. Souter, 69, joined the court in 1990. He was nominated by President George H.W. Bush. At a White House news briefing May 1, President Barack Obama thanked Souter for his service.
Sotomayor’s nomination opens a new phase in the drive to replace Souter, as liberal and conservative groups alike scour the record she has compiled in 17 years on the federal bench.
In one of her most notable decisions, as an appellate judge she sided last year with the city of New Haven, Conn., in a discrimination case brought by white firefighters. The city threw out results of a promotion exam because too few minorities scored high enough. Coincidentally, that case is now before the Supreme Court.
That ruling has already drawn criticism from conservatives, and is likely to play a role in her confirmation hearing.
In one of her most memorable rulings as federal district judge, in 1995, Sotomayor ruled with Major League Baseball players over owners in a labor strike that had led to the cancellation of the World Series.
Obama referred to that in his remarks, then joked he hoped her support for the Yankees would not unduly influence New Englanders to oppose her in the Senate.
Among them is Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who said, “The American people will want the Senate to carry out its constitutional duty with conscientiousness and civility.”
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, issued a statement saying it will be up to the Senate to determine “if Ms. Sotomayor understands that the proper role of a judge is to act as a neutral umpire of the law, calling balls and strikes fairly without regard to one’s own personal preferences or political views.” That harked back the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts, who likened the job of a judge to that of a baseball umpire.
In his remarks, Obama made no mention of his earlier statement that he wanted a justice with empathy, although his remark that compassion was needed came close.
Sotomayor grew up in New York after her parents moved from Puerto Rico. She has dealt with diabetes since age 8 and lost her father at age 9, growing up under the care of her mother in humble surroundings. As a girl, inspired by the Perry Mason television show, she knew she wanted to be a judge. She is divorced with no children.
A graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, a former prosecutor and private attorney, Sotomayor became a federal judge for the Southern District of New York in 1992. She became an appeals judge in 1998 for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers New York, Vermont and Connecticut.
At her Senate confirmation hearing more than a decade ago, she said, “I don’t believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.”
Obama’s nomination is the first by a Democratic president in 15 years.
One conservative group did not wait for the formal announcement. Wendy Long of the Judicial Confirmation Network, issued a statement calling Sotomayor a “liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written.”
Abortion rights have been a flashpoint in several recent Supreme Court confirmations, although Sotomayor has not written any controversial rulings on the subject.
As a federal appeals court judge in 2002, she ruled against an abortion rights group that had challenged a government policy prohibiting foreign organizations receiving U.S. funds from performing or supporting abortions.
In her opinion, Sotomayor wrote that the government was free to favor the anti-abortion position over a pro-choice position when public funds were involved.
Sotomayor has spoken about her pride in her ethnic background and has said that personal experiences “affect the facts that judges choose to see.”
“I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging,” she said in a speech in 2001. “But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.”
From the moment Souter announced his resignation, it was widely assumed Obama would select a woman to replace him, and perhaps a Hispanic as well.
Obama came to office at a time when several potential vacancies loomed on the high court. Justice John Paul Stevens at is 89, and Ginsburg recently underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer.
Alex Brandon, AP
Liberals, Conservatives Scour Record
May 26, 2009— Americas Society and Council of the Americas applaud President Obama’s nomination of a Hispanic justice to the Supreme Court. The nomination of judge Sonia Sotomayor paves the way for the court’s first Hispanic justice, a historic milestone for the United States’ growing Hispanic population.
“With the Hispanic population at historic levels and continuing to grow, this nomination is an important recognition of the integration of Hispanics and the contributions that they will make to the U.S. government in the years to come,” said Susan Segal, President and CEO of Americas Society and Council of the Americas.
The nomination reflects transformative shifts throughout the United States, as Hispanics continue to increase their economic might and voting power. Nearly one in six U.S. residents is Hispanic, according to recent U.S. Census reports, and they make up the fastest-growing minority group in the country.
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The Huffington Post
Though their numbers have dwindled in the Senate, the Republican party is not entirely devoid of options to block the nomination. Sotomayor will first need approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee before she can be voted on by the entire Senate. Though a majority vote is usually all that’s required for a committee to advance a bill to the floor of the Senate, an obscure rule requires that judicial appointments be approved by a majority that includes at least one member of the minority party. In the case of Sotomayor, that means she’ll need one Republican member of Judiciary to vote her to the floor.That might draw excitement from conservative activists, but it’s not likely that Sotomayor will lose a party-line vote of the judiciary committee. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a key Republican vote on the committee, has already suggested an unwillingness to block the nomination. And Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), another Republican member of the committee, has already voted to confirm Sotomayor once before (for the Second Circuit eleven years ago) making it unlikely he’ll oppose her this time. By the time she makes it to the floor of the Senate, Al Franken will likely have been seated in Minnesota, providing the Democrats with a 60 vote, filibuster-proof majority. At that point, and without the filibuster option, Republicans will be powerless to prevent Sotomayor’s confirmation.
Still, the GOP is angling for a fight. Among the few who graced Obama’s short list, Sotomayor was largely considered the most progressive of the bunch. But as the Republican leadership gears up, they may be walking squarely into another political trap, carefully designed by the president. Should she be confirmed, Sotomayor will be the first Hispanic on the bench, chosen at a time when the Hispanic vote has emerged as a critical component to sustaining a Democratic majority over the long-term.
Already in 2008, Hispanic voters, who represent the fastest growing minority population in the country, were responsible for a dramatic political realignment. In the wake of an anti-immigrant nativism that came to define the Republican presidential nominating contests, Obama won two-thirds of the Hispanic vote, fourteen points higher than John Kerry’s share four years earlier. That meant wins in states like New Mexico and Colorado, Nevada and Florida, and it meant an insurmountable electoral margin for Obama. The president recognizes that if the Democratic party can turn Hispanic voters into a loyal bloc of supporters, they can continue to expand their margins around the country, even in places as conservative as Texas, driven almost entirely by Hispanic population growth.
Will nominating the first Hispanic justice to the high court further Obama’s courtship of the Hispanic community? It certainly can’t hurt, though it’s hard to imagine that it alone will do the job. But Obama may stand to gain more, not from corralling a majority of Democrats to vote in favor of Sotomayor, but from inspiring the most virulent elements of the Republican party to oppose her.
The Republican leadership has already indicated that they view the fight over Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as a good opportunity to unify their base and that, among those on the short list, they were most eager to go after Sotomayor. But if they follow through, if they do decide to spend the next two and half months waging an impossible fight against a nominee whose confirmation is all but guaranteed, they may cause permanent damage. If the Hispanic community abandons the Republican party altogether, the Republican party can abandon any hope of regaining power in American politics.
Besides, Sotomayor is not that easily assailable. While her credentials are undeniably liberal, she was originally nominated to the federal bench by President George H.W. Bush. She has top notch academic credentials, having attending Princeton and Yale Law School, and has more experience on the federal bench than any nominee to the bench in the last half century.
Still Republicans have made a sport out of fighting unwinnable political fights to their detriment. It’s the bread and butter of their new brand of politics.
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The UPDATE – A May 28, 2009 e-mail from Vice President Joe Biden:
A home run
Vice President Joe Biden to Pincas
May 28, 2009
Pincas –
President Obama hit a home run with his nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court — and not just because she’s the “woman who saved baseball” by ending the strike in 1995, nor simply because she would be the first Latina ever to serve on the high court.
It was a home run because in her three-decade career as a prosecutor, judge, private litigator and law professor, she has time and again earned bipartisan praise as one of America’s finest legal minds. And it was the right choice because Judge Sotomayor — herself born and raised in a South Bronx housing project — has summed up the American dream in her own incredible story and never once forgotten how the law affects our daily lives.
Now her historic nomination goes to the Senate. I know that process well, and I can tell you that the debate of the coming weeks and months will be shaped by the public response in the next few hours and days. It’s critical that the Senate and the public clearly see where the American people stand.
Will you add your name to the growing list of Americans who are pledging to “Stand with Sotomayor” today? Your name and comments will become part of a public display of support at this crucial time.
Vice President Joe Biden writes:
“I’ve followed Judge Sotomayor’s remarkable journey for years. I voted for her when President George H.W. Bush nominated her for the District Court in 1992, and I was proud to vote for her again when President Bill Clinton nominated her for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998.”
Born to a Puerto Rican family, Sotomayor grew up in a public housing project in the South Bronx. She was an avid reader from an early age, and was first inspired to pursue a legal career by the Nancy Drew mystery novels. Driven by her mother’s belief in the power of education and her own relentless work ethic, she excelled in school. She won a scholarship to Princeton University, graduated summa cum laude, and then went on to attend Yale Law School where she served as an editor of the prestigious Yale Law Journal.
Like President Obama, Sotomayor passed up many more lucrative opportunities after law school to put her degree to work for the public good. She served as an Assistant District Attorney in New York, tackling some of the hardest cases facing the city, including robberies, assaults, murders, police brutality, and child pornography. Her growing reputation for fearlessness and legal brilliance prompted her first nomination to the federal bench, and she’s only continued to soar.
If confirmed, she would start with more federal judicial experience than any Justice in a century, more overall judicial experience than any Justice in 70 years, and replace David Souter as the only Justice with firsthand experience as a trial judge. She has participated in over 3,000 panel decisions and authored roughly 400 opinions, expertly handling difficult issues of constitutional law, complicated procedural matters, and lawsuits involving complex business organizations.
In her years on the bench, Judge Sotomayor has earned acclaim from legal scholars and experts from both sides of the aisle for her intellectual toughness, her probing oral questioning, and her ability to issue decisions that hold both factual details and legal doctrines in equal measure. And she’s never failed to apply a steady, common-sense analysis of how the law touches our daily lives.
Her story is incredible. Her qualifications are undeniable. And her judgment will serve us all well on the highest court in the land.
Please join me in becoming a part of this historic moment for the Court and our country. Add your name now to publicly show that you, too, “Stand with Sotomayor.” In these crucial early hours, let us leave no doubt about the people’s support for this extraordinary nominee.
http://my.barackobama.com/sotomayorstand
Thank you,
Vice President Joe Biden
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