Go Tigers!
As a Latin American and her fellow Princetonian, I was proud to see Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, before the Judiciary Committee of the US Senate. She was sitting there, with a broken ankle, in front of the Committee members, answering all sorts of questions about her past rulings and the controversial comments she had made throughout her tenure as a judge. In these two days of hearings, she proved to be an articulate, lucid, and knowledgeable woman who is very proud of her Puerto Rican roots but conscious that in her role she has to serve all Americans equally. Both her legal and her life experiences will bring an added value to the most powerful independent court on the planet.
The first Latina to be nominated to the US Supreme Court, Judge Sotomayor carries with her a great deal of wisdom and knowledge of the law. In the hearings this week, she emphasized that a judge's job is not to make law, but to apply it. In her rulings, Judge Sotomayor said, she had always been "impartial" using a philosophy of "fidelity to the law". One of her most well known decisions as a federal districts judge ended a long baseball strike in 1995, allowing the new season of the game to begin one day after she issued her injunction. In another notable case as a court of appeals judge, Judge Sotomayor argued that the New York Police Department could not fire an employee who had been sending racist letters through the mail, for terminating his contract would be a violation of the First Amendment. As the other two judges in the panel disagreed with her, the ruling was contrary to Judge's Sotomayor's opinion.
It is that same issue, race, that had her answering most of the tough questions before the Committee. It has been all over the news: Judge Sotomayor once said that a "wise latina" would more often than not reach better conclusions than a white man who had not lived that life. Also, on another ruling as a court of appeals judge, she maintained that the City of New Haven had the right to have its firefighters sit a new test for job promotions after no black firefighters scored enough points to be promoted under a first test. Recently, however, the Supreme Court overthrew her decision, albeit by a vote of 5-4. Yet, many Republicans are insinuating that she is a racist.
Her "wise latina" sentence and the fact that President Obama said that he had nominated Judge Sotomayor because he wanted someone with "empathy" on the Supreme Court, caused concern that she is biased in her rulings. For many, empathy or particular life experiences have no space in the law, which needs to be unprejudiced and free of all emotional attachment. As Senator Jeff Sessions. the most prominent Republican in the Committee said, lawyers would be worried if a judge is unwilling to consider all of the evidence presented to her and selective in the treatment she gives to particular groups of people.
Nonetheless, after listening to Judge Sotomayor yesterday and today I strongly believe that she was able to explain her words and her past decisions, putting them in context and underlining the following: "I do not believe that any racial, ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judging... every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge, regardless of their background or life experiences". The "wise latina" comment, she said, was "bad" because it left a wrong impression. When she said those words, she was trying to be "inspirational" to a group of Latino students, but the sentence just "fell flat".
When she referred to her decision on the New Haven test for firefighters, and when asked about Roe v. Wade (the Supreme Court ruling that made abortion legal in the US), Judge Sotomayor used one word several times: "precedent". There was substantial legal precedent, she argued, for her decision to allow the City of New Haven to have the new test -there was evidence that suggested that the first test had had a "disparate impact" on minority firefighters. On Roe v. Wade, formerly the issue by which all nominees lived or die, she maintained that "all precedents of the Supreme Court I consider settled law". She added that the Supreme Court had found a right of privacy (the cornerstone which gives women the right to abort according to the Court's jurisprudence) in "various places in the Constitution". In short, she defended her viewpoints and past rulings with clarity and elegance.
Finally, let me say that Judge Sotomayor's confirmation makes me think of another equally respectable fellow Princetonian and his confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2005: Justice Samuel Alito did not have a confirmation process free of controversy and disguised accusations. Back then, the ACLU, a liberal pressure group, maintained that (then) Judge Alito was a danger for the civil liberties of Americans. John Kerry tried and failed to filibuster his confirmation by the Senate. Many pro-choice groups were afraid that he would seek to restrict abortion rights. During his confirmation hearings, his family had to hear comments and questions that were, for lack of a better expression, in poor taste. Yet, Judge Alito was confirmed by the Judiciary Committee (in a vote that was along party lines) and then by the Senate, where only four Democrats voted for his nomination.
A similar thing is bound to happen now with Judge (soon-to-be Justice) Sotomayor. Now more witnesses will come and talk about her before the Committee, but regardless of what they say the outcome is almost certain. The Democrats control both the Committee and the overall Senate. Expect the vote to follow party lines this time, too. But after all, Supreme Court politics have always been about liberals and conservatives and keeping a balance between them. With four conservative justices (Scalia, Roberts, Alito and Thomas), three liberals (Ginsburg, Breyer and Stevens), and a swing-vote (Kennedy), the Court ought to have another liberal to replace Justice Souter.
Judge Sotomayor is the liberal the court needs, and she is more than fit for the task -plus hers would be a historic nomination. With the son of a Kenyan immigrant in the White House and a Boricua woman who grew up in the Bronx on the Supreme Court, America would continue to show it still is a beacon of opportunity and equality among the great nations of the Earth.
What do you predict happening in the long-run to the Honduran people if Zelaya is not restored his position as President? Just curious since I have family members and friends living there. :/ So why do you think they used undemocratic ways to rid of Zelaya and defend democracy? You say they made a big miscalculation but I feel like it was their only choice to prevent being in the hands of a Chavez-like president which would have sucked a ton. I'm not very familiar with politics so excuse my naiveness.