Sotomayor’s road to Supreme Court

Category: National

As U.S. Supreme Court-designate Sonia Sotomayor has certainly figured out, the road to the bench will not be a cakewalk. It’s only been a few weeks since President Obama picked the U.S. District judge to replace retiring Justice David Souter, but already critics have pulled out all the stops against the nominee. The question becomes, is there enough material in Sotomayor’s background to continue the fight?

Right now, their loudest condemnation centers around a comment Sotomayor made while speaking in 2001 at a UC Berkeley School of Law symposium titled “Raising the Bar: Latino and Latina Presence in the Judiciary and the Struggle for Representation.” In that speech, Sotomayor said she “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.”

Her lecture was part of a conference focusing on issues of diversity and the need to increase Hispanic representation on the bench. Taken in context, her comment was just one piece of a discussion about her Latina identity and how it has influenced her presence on the bench. As the president pointed out, in that very same speech Sotomayor emphasized “that it was nine white males who passed down Brown versus Board of Education, which is partly responsible for me sitting here,” referencing the 1954 Supreme Court decision that made school segregation illegal.  “[T]hat’s hardly the kind of statement that would indicate that she subscribes to identity politics.”

But opponents have taken that sentence and run with it. They claim such comments are evidence that Sotomayor will engage in judicial “activism,” relying on personal feelings rather than the rule of law when deciding cases. They also point to the statement as being racist against white males.

President Obama has called such criticism nonsense, defending Sotomayor by claiming that her background and experience “will give her information about the struggles and hardships that people are going through” and make her a good judge.

In early June, Sotomayor made “courtesy calls” to U.S. senators on Capitol Hill, hoping to pave the way for a smooth confirmation process. Her conversations ran the gamut, from bicycling to Nancy Drew books, and even a legal discussion of the doctrine of stare decisis (respect for legal precedent). Naturally, the 2001 speech crept into the dialogue. She assured senators that not only did she make a poor choice of words, but that she’s bound by law when ruling on cases.

Her face time did not dissipate everyone’s concerns. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, admitted he was still bothered by the “wise Latina” comment. He challenged Sotomayor to prove that she will remain unbiased and base her legal rulings on nothing but legal principles.

But in the end, it’s becoming evident that Graham and other opponents are in the minority. Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSBlog notes that Sotomayor’s record shows genuine balance, so it’s hard to accuse her of being a liberal ideologue. Conservatives, too, are having a hard time rallying the troops when they can’t point to any Sotomayor writings on controversial social issues such as gay rights and abortion.  And then there is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s retraction of an early comment that Sotomayor is racist.

So, will the minority continue to raise objections to Sotomayor’s nomination in the hopes of delaying or derailing the process, or will they back off their opposition? Confirmation hearings will begin on July 13. At that time, we will see if the hearings process will be a cakewalk for the nominee.

This is the first article in an occasional series about the Road to the Supreme Court.

Tags: Supreme Court