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The Sotomayor Nomination
Jack Balkin thinks that Barack Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is likely to go smoothly:
Senators are just as aware of the politics of appointments as Obama is. Obama will likely need one or two Republicans to avoid any threat of a fillibuster; a candidate who appeals to important constituencies that Republicans also need will be harder to oppose and can help provide the 60th vote. Also helpful may be the fact that Sotomayor was first appointed to the bench by a Republican and is being positioned as a moderate or pragmatic liberal. In this respect, the careful positioning of Sotomayor as not the most liberal candidate Obama was considering helps to make her confirmation easier and also helps establish Obama's own image as a non-doctrinaire pragmatist.
But if you prefer to be prepared for the worst, Tom Goldstein at ScotusBlog outlines the most likely lines of attack against her:
Opponents’ first claim — likely stated obliquely and only on background — will be that Judge Sotomayor is not smart enough for the job....The second claim – and this one will be front and center – will be the classic resort to ideology: that Judge Sotomayor is a liberal ideologue and “judicial activist.”....The third claim — related to the second — will be that Judge Sotomayor is unprincipled or dismissive of positions with which she disagrees....Finally, critics will characterize her as gruff and impersonable, relying on excerpts from oral arguments and anonymous criticisms in the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary.
There's more at both links. In the end, I don't think Sotomayor will have any real trouble winning confirmation.
I
I think it may go smoothly too, but would suggest leaning on the Republican Senators who approved her in 1998 for the Second Circuit...reminding them they did so, and that Bush 1 nominated her for the District Court of Southern New York. Keep a fire lit under these guys.
They are: Bennett (UT), Cochran, Collins, Gregg, Hatch, Lugar, and Snowe.
President Obama will
President Obama will nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor
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.
See details of her biography:Judge Sonia Sotomayor-news-online
I listened to her speech this morning
and wasn't impressed with it. I know giving a speech isn't the top priority in supreme court justice, but her performance in these types of public appearances and in senate hearings will be important to her confirmation. In particular I thought she spent far too much to talking about her family. The stuff about her mother was touching and appropriate, but i don't know why we need to hear about your brother, step father, nieces and nephews in this context. And at the same time I felt there was insufficient mention of legal issues or guiding philosophies. I know there's no reason to mention anything specific, but just some broad principles that guide her would have been nice. And finally, the delivery was somewhat stilted and she seemed excessively nervous. This is certainly understandable, but not what I'd like in an optimal nominee.
All that being said, I haven't yet taken a look at anything substantive about her. I'm talking about just one 10 minute speech and hopefully I'll discover she's totally awesome once I know more.
dag nabbit
I was hoping that Inkblot would get the nod.
Will Republicans Go Easy?
Republicans haven't gone easy on anything in a long time. I have trouble seeing any of them voting for Sotomayor, especially when Fox goes into its activist fascist coverage and when Conservative groups use their descriptions of her in their fundraising letters. I thought that if Republicans were unanimous in the Judiciary Committee that they could hold up the nomination, so I don't think Sotomayor will sail through.
too many Catholics on the SC
Too many Catholics on the SC will not be one of the arguments against Sotomayor's nomination.
Sotomayor
Thanks for your report on Sotomayor's speech, Kahner. My gut feeling is that she's no Ruth Bader Ginsburg, certainly not someone I would describe as a 'liberal' SC nominee. From her wiki:
"In Center for Reproductive Law and Policy v. Bush, Sotomayor upheld the Bush administration's implementation of the "Mexico City Policy" which requires foreign organizations receiving U.S. funds to "neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations". Sotomayor held that the policy did not constitute a violation of equal protection, as the government "is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position, and can do so with public funds".
To be fair, her wiki lists some of her other court rulings, most of which I agree with. Still....
Haha, tpx
Thanks for mentioning that. I was thinking the same thing.
Thanking her family was just fine, thank you.
I thought talking about her family was fine. One of the major points of the whisper campaign against her was that she was gruff and dismissive of other's opinions, in short bitchy (funny how often this comes up in discussing successful women). Her speech today presented a softer more nuanced image which put the lie to the whisper campaign's claims.
A proud moment in our history
I am proud that our nation has become mature enough to realize that competence should be a secondary consideration to quotas and race and gender preferences. Let's have more Condi Rices and Alberto Gozaleses!
With a Hispanic on the Supreme Court, I am even hopeful we can abandon rule of law, which white people use to keep down minorities, and rig elections for the Democrats for years to come by rewarding 30 million illegal aliens with citizenship.
The argument "gruff and
The argument "gruff and impersonable" ain't gonna fly, is it.
bipartisanship
luther is right. if obama felt he had to appoint a hispanic, he should have been truly bipartisan and nominated alberto gonzales. a harvard grad!
your pal,
blake
Name one
Can any of you leftists name just one benefit our country has derived from "diversity (not counting kumbaya platitudes)????
Conservatives believe in equal opportunity, leftists believe in equal outcome (hence - affirmative action).