Sotomayor For SCOTUS: What It Means
President Obama's choice of U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be the next justice on the Supreme Court is a pick heavy with historic significance but also a sign of the confidence the president has in his political standing.
Sotomayor, if confirmed, would be the first Hispanic justice on the Court, and Obama and his senior aides had been getting serious pressure from the Latino community to make her the pick.
"So far so good, said Gil Meneses, a Democratic consultant, told the Fix recently when asked to assess the Obama administration's effort at Latino outreach. "All eyes on immigration reform and of course, [Supreme Court] nominee. That will be a milestone for Latino community."
In picking Sotomayor then, Obama has almost certainly solidified his standing among Hispanics, the nation's largest minority group and an increasingly influential part of any national candidate's electoral calculus.
Republican strategists have fretted openly that if their party can't find a way to make Hispanics a swing group electorally -- as President George W. Bush did in 2004 when he won 44 percent of the Latino vote -- they may find themselves in a permanent minority status. Bridging that gap between the GOP and the Hispanic community just got a lot more difficult.
The Sotomayor pick also reaffirms the idea in Americans' mind that the Obama presidency is an historic one -- filled with "firsts" that might have seemed unimaginable even a few years ago.
Obama has spoken sparingly about the opportunity (and burden) presented to him as the country's first black president but he is clearly aware of the fact that the eyes of the world are on him and what he does over the next four (or eight) years will have an impact long after he has left office.
In an interview with Post editors are reporters just before he was sworn in as the nation's 44th president, Obama called his election a "radical thing" in that the nation's children would grow up thinking that it was entirely normal that the president was black. "I wouldn't underestimate the force of that," he added.
There is a direct link between his election and the Sotomayor pick, a series of firsts that reaffirm the idea that anyone born in this country can grow up to be anything they can achieve.
"No dream is beyond our reach in the United States," Obama said in announcing Sotomayor as his pick this morning.
Finally, the Sotomayor selection is a sign that Obama knows he is riding high in terms of personal popularity and job approval and isn't afraid to pick someone that will enrage the conservative right.
Sotomayor, who has been the favorite since Justice David Souter was announced, came under a blistering critique from some Republicans for statements she has made in the past that suggested a belief in judicial activism. In one particularly well-circulated clip, Sotomayor says that "the court of appeals is where policy is made" before joking: "I know this is on tape and I shouldn't ever say that because we don't make law."
Conservative groups are already rallying against the idea of Sotomayor on the court. "Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written," said Wendy Long of the Judicial Confirmation Network in a statement on the pick.
Obama was well aware that selecting Sotomayor would create this sort of reaction on the right and possibly lead to a more contentious hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee and vote on the floor of the Senate than some of the other names that had been floated.
The simple fact: this appears to be a fight he welcomes because of the current political environment. Democrats stand at 59 seats in the Senate (Democrat Al Franken could well be seated by the time Sotomayor is up for a confirmation vote) and Obama is not only popular but also trusted by the American people, according to recent polls.
Republicans, on the other hand, have staggered around leaderless since the 2008 election -- watching helplessly as the unpopular former vice president has stepped into the void.
Republicans will, almost certainly, use the Sotomayor pick as a rallying cry for a dispirited party. But, in picking Sotomayor, Obama is expressing his supreme confidence that even a united GOP can't beat the White House.
By Chris Cillizza | May 26, 2009; 10:20 AM ET |
