Got this in an e-mail today-----passing along fyi----"Can Sotomayor and will she divorce her personal opinions and life experiences from her decision? What is it with the socialist left that they pull these people out of the woodwork to name them as Czars and now Obama's naming to the Supreme Court"? Never heard of her until he named her.
"Judge Sotomayor stayed cool throughout the questioning and avoided giving direct answers about her views on several polarizing issues, including presidential signing statements, property rights, gun control and the death penalty."
WASHINGTON — Republican senators sparred with Judge Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday over racial bias, judicial activism and temperament as she presented herself as a reliable follower of precedent rather than a jurist shaped by gender and ethnicity, as some of her past speeches suggested.
Second Day of Confirmation Hearings
Sotomayor Explains Her Past Statements
In calm, low-key and at times legalistic testimony, Judge Sotomayor rebuffed hours of skeptical questions and stuck resolutely to her message that if confirmed to the Supreme Court, she would not let personal bias influence her rulings.
In the first two hours alone, she said she ruled by applying “the law” or some variation at least two dozen times.
“It’s a refrain I keep repeating,” she told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “because that is my philosophy of judging: applying the law to the facts at hand.”
She retreated from or tried to explain away some past statements, most notably her much-criticized comment that she hoped a “wise Latina woman” might reach better conclusions than white males without the same experiences.
She noted that “no words I have ever spoken or written have received so much attention,” dismissing them as “a rhetorical flourish that fell flat” and that did not mean what critics have interpreted them to mean.
“It was bad because it left an impression that I believe that life experiences command a result in a case,” Judge Sotomayor said, publicly addressing the controversy over that line for the first time.
“But that’s clearly not what I do as a judge.”
She added:
“Life experiences have to influence you. We’re not robots who listen to evidence and don’t have feelings. We have to recognize those feelings, and put them aside. That’s what my speech was saying.”
Still, for all of the buildup, the second day of her confirmation hearings produced few of the anticipated fireworks as senators moved from opening statements to questions and answers.
At times, it had more the feel of a law school seminar about statutes of limitation and strict scrutiny standards.
Judge Sotomayor stayed cool throughout the questioning and avoided giving direct answers about her views on several polarizing issues, including presidential signing statements, property rights, gun control and the death penalty.
She barely flinched when read anonymous reviews of her temperament, including phrases like “a bit of a bully” and “terror on the bench,” saying only that she asks “tough questions” during hearings.
Her measured responses were in line with a White House strategy of keeping the hearings as unexciting as possible, a four-corners defense recognizing that only an unexpected development could derail her confirmation by a Senate in which Democrats control 60 of 100 seats.
Republicans said that as she sought to claim a seat on the highest court, Judge Sotomayor was sounding different notes than she had over the course of her career. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out — who are we getting here?” asked Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “You know, who are we getting as a nation?”
“I listen to you today; I think I’m listening to Judge Roberts,” Mr. Graham added, referring to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the leader of the court’s conservative wing. But then, he said, “you have these speeches that just blow me away.”
While the “wise Latina” line has drawn the most attention, Republicans quizzed Judge Sotomayor about a series of statements she has made over the years.
In a speech she has given at least five times from 1994 to 2003, she noted a colleague’s belief that judges must transcend personal sympathies and aspire to a greater degree of fairness. In the speech, Judge Sotomayor said that she agreed and that she tried to work toward that goal, But she added, “I wonder whether achieving the goal is possible in all or even most cases.”
She went on to say:
“In judging, I further accept that our experiences as women will in some way affect our decisions.” She later added that “my experiences will affect the facts I choose to see as a judge.” And while saying she did not know exactly what difference that makes, she said “I accept that there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.”
But during her testimony Tuesday, she said those speeches were “addressing an academic question” and “intended to inspire” audiences of Latinos and women. And she said she had never rendered a ruling based on her personal feelings.
Judge Sotomayor even repudiated a statement President Obama made as a senator in 2005, before he voted against confirming Mr. Roberts to the court, that “what is in the judge’s heart” is critical in the toughest cases.
“Judges can’t rely on what’s in their heart,” she said. “They don’t determine the law. Congress makes the laws.”
Democratic senators used their questions to defend her and to try turn the tables on Republicans, noting that they took issue with her speeches but for the most part not the 230 rulings she has written and the 3,000 she has participated in during 11 years on the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, based in New York City.
Her defenders cited studies showing that she voted with Republican judges and ruled against discrimination claims the vast majority of the time. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, sought to rebut criticism by noting how Judge Sotomayor ruled against many plaintiffs with whom she clearly had sympathy, like relatives of victims of the crash of TWA Flight 800, which exploded over the Atlantic Ocean in 1996.
Sensitive to the politics of assailing the first Hispanic nominee to the Supreme Court, none of the Republican senators who questioned the judge Tuesday approached the assertive style of Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the committee.
Mr. Sessions, who before joining the Senate was rejected as a nominee to the federal appeals court, repeatedly pressed Judge Sotomayor on her past statements, saying that allowing background to affect a judge’s decision “goes against the American ideal and oath that a judge takes to be fair to every party.”
Although Judge Sotomayor sought to avoid much discussion of current cases, she said she believed that under current law, restrictions on abortion must always allow for the health of the mother.
Her comments came in a colloquy with Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who argued that Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. had misled senators when they suggested at their confirmation hearings that such a principle was settled law, only to uphold a federal abortion restriction in 2007 with no such exemption.
Judge Sotomayor said she believed other Supreme Court precedents still required that “the health and welfare of a woman must be a compelling consideration.”
End of e-mail.
MJ Further Comment"
In reference to her defense of past public statements to an audience----------
"--during her testimony Tuesday, she said those speeches(in reference to previous comments made) were “addressing an academic question” and “intended to inspire” audiences of Latinos and women. And she said she had never rendered a ruling based on her personal feelings."
I ask does Ms Sotomayor have a perception problem? Do all women agree with her?
For her to claim that she had never rendered a ruling based on her personal feelings is a physical, spiritual and psychological impossibility and would say a stretch of the truth.
Of course she will write decisions and interpret cases based upon her experience and perception of the world as well as her belief of what the world should be.
One of the things that has not been touched upon------is her health. As I understand she is diabetic and must inject insulin several times a day.
How will or would these fluctuations affect her ability to function fully as a Supreme Court Judge?
Perhaps, the Congress is afraid to go there-----however, it is a question that needs to be answered. When someone's body collapses because of diabetes------how is the rest of the body and brain affected? How would this illness affect her decisions and ability to be fully present on a daily and hourly basis?
mj |
