Is Sonia Sotomayer A Throw Away?

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Obama plans to nominate Sonia Sotomayer to the Supreme Court.

After I read a variety of articles about her, it occurred to me that she's a throw-away nomination like Harriet Miers was for Bush. The nomination lets Obama off the hook with the Hispanics and makes the GOP a bit more likely to buy the next nominee in line, because they dont want to be perceived as stonewalling every nominee.

Her track record on abortion started me thinking about what her real function is. Her record isnt likely to appeal to CHOICE advocates. She's more of an affirmative action activist, and is on record with some red meat opinions about the function of judges. She thinks judges should make law and policy, which is the legislature's role.

 

[Liar]

Have you seen the GOP lately? Looks to me like they DO want to be precieved as stonewalling everything. They've taken the idea of opposition to poetic heights. For every roadblock they put up for the president, they are appealing to their hardlined constitutency. And that's the ticket to reelection for many of them.

 

[jomar]

The pundits I've heard think she's solid and gonna get seated. And that it will open up the field for the next appointee Obama will likely have.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I guess we'll see what happens.

 

[amicus]

"Social Engineering", This nominee used several times the current left wing liberal 'buzzword', "Empathy", that she would rule taking gender and ethnic origin into consideration when interpreting the Constitution.

She approved a court case of 'reverse racism' where white firefighters scored higher on examinations than did black applicants, but were denied the promotion for racial reasons.

"Affirmative action', racial quota's, the same social attitude that brought down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by extending mortgages to minorities with no means of repaying the loans.

It is a terrible selection, but an expected one, with the political roots of the new administration. The opposition party in Congress has no means of blocking or even filibustering the nomination either in Committee or on the Floor, so, unless they find something legally or morally revolting, this nominee will be confirmed.

However, replacing one Liberal Justice with another should not change the make-up of the Court.

Amicus

 

[Dragonlipz]

Obama plans to nominate Sonia Sotomayer to the Supreme Court.

After I read a variety of articles about her, it occurred to me that she's a throw-away nomination like Harriet Miers was for Bush. The nomination lets Obama off the hook with the Hispanics and makes the GOP a bit more likely to buy the next nominee in line, because they dont want to be perceived as stonewalling every nominee.

Her track record on abortion started me thinking about what her real function is. Her record isnt likely to appeal to CHOICE advocates. She's more of an affirmative action activist, and is on record with some red meat opinions about the function of judges. She thinks judges should make law and policy, which is the legislature's role.

Turn the channel, get some new talking points........the RNC (Rush, Newt and Cheney aren't where you and Amicus, Zeb, and Austin want to be.......well, maybe it's where you guys wanna be but it ain't nowhere........
A poet in the previous millenium wrote "Get outa the new one if ya can't lend a hand, cause the time's they are a changin'...."
And they are.....faster and vaster than you trolls can follow......Ciao

 

[Dragonlipz]

"Social Engineering", This nominee used several times the current left wing liberal 'buzzword', "Empathy", that she would rule taking gender and ethnic origin into consideration when interpreting the Constitution.

She approved a court case of 'reverse racism' where white firefighters scored higher on examinations than did black applicants, but were denied the promotion for racial reasons.

"Affirmative action', racial quota's, the same social attitude that brought down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by extending mortgages to minorities with no means of repaying the loans.

It is a terrible selection, but an expected one, with the political roots of the new administration. The opposition party in Congress has no means of blocking or even filibustering the nomination either in Committee or on the Floor, so, unless they find something legally or morally revolting, this nominee will be confirmed.

However, replacing one Liberal Justice with another should not change the make-up of the Court.

Amicus

More troll bullshit......

 

[ishtat]

1 Is she an outstanding lawyer or doesn't that matter too much?

2 Wonder where she stands on abortion. She says she's a catholic?

 

[amicus]

]1 Is she an outstanding lawyer or doesn't that matter too much?

2 Wonder where she stands on abortion. She says she's a catholic[/I]?

~~~

I wish, 'outstanding lawyer' was part of the equation, but it seems, 'political correctness' is the defining characteristic in determining the ability of lawyers.

I think I heard she is 'pro choice', but I did not hear of her religion.

Amicus

 

[TE999]

From what I hear, there are more qualified individuals that could have been nominated. This is payback for the Hispanic vote and insurance on the next...plain and simple.

 

[Carnevil9]

I heard a clip of her speaking at some college (sorry, can't be more specific) saying how her role as a Justice is to "set policy." That's a scary attitude.

By the way, Amicus, since the Democrats don't have 60 seated Senators (lacking one of those from Minnesota), they could NOT block a filibuster if the Repubs chose to mount one......Carney

 

[amicus]

You are technically correct, I think, but three at least, moderate Republicans voted against their Party on the 'redistribution of wealth' bill. Perhaps they could hold together...then again, there was a defection from the Republicans lately, and the Independents, two of them, I think, always vote for the Dems....

guess we shall see?

ami

 

[JamesSD]

She's smart, she's liberal, she's a woman, and at least one GOP senator has agreed not to filibuster. Looks like a shoo-in.

 

[ishtat]

One interesting factor Obama may not have considered is the fact that she has had Type 1 Diabetes since age 8. That probably means she is not a twenty year appointment.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Her ruling on the firefighters is before the Supreme Court in a few days, theyre expected to reverse her.

 

[amicus]

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32042

This offers a little more information on the 'firefighters' court suit....


ami

 

[Dragonlipz]

I heard a clip of her speaking at some college (sorry, can't be more specific) saying how her role as a Justice is to "set policy." That's a scary attitude.

By the way, Amicus, since the Democrats don't have 60 seated Senators (lacking one of those from Minnesota), they could NOT block a filibuster if the Repubs chose to mount one......Carney

Listen to the whole clip and and learn the true context of what she said......Essentially she says that 'We are the sum of our experiences" - very radical, doncha think? Scary? Only if you're a neocon cretin.....

 

[Dragonlipz]

"Social Engineering", This nominee used several times the current left wing liberal 'buzzword', "Empathy", that she would rule taking gender and ethnic origin into consideration when interpreting the Constitution.

She approved a court case of 'reverse racism' where white firefighters scored higher on examinations than did black applicants, but were denied the promotion for racial reasons.

"Affirmative action', racial quota's, the same social attitude that brought down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by extending mortgages to minorities with no means of repaying the loans.

It is a terrible selection, but an expected one, with the political roots of the new administration. The opposition party in Congress has no means of blocking or even filibustering the nomination either in Committee or on the Floor, so, unless they find something legally or morally revolting, this nominee will be confirmed.

However, replacing one Liberal Justice with another should not change the make-up of the Court.

Amicus

Change the channel, go for a walk, THINK FOR YOURSELF......it'll be scary at first but satisfying if you can do it.....I'm pulling for ya....you can do it!!! YES YOU CAN!!!!!!

 

[Austin8]

Speaking at the University of California at Berkeley in 2001, she said that the ethnicity and sex of a judge “may and will make a difference in our judging.”

Sotomayor also said, “I 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.”

Seems this is a poisonous doctrine for any judge, much less a justice of the Supreme Court.

What would the political spinmasters say if some white guy said that a white male would more often reach a better conclusion than a Hispanic female?

It’s not the rule of law, it’s the rule of lawyers: That’s the central message conveyed by Pres. Barack Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor!

To answer your previous question, again another Catholic, Ami...

 

[amicus]

Thanks Austin, nice summary...

ami

 

[Pure]

some of the actual text.

i know some of you are quite happy with Coulter's talking points, but in case anyone wants to see Sotomayer's "wise Latina" statement in context, here's a bit more of the (2001)speech, and its url.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html?_r=1


That same point can be made with respect to people of color. No one person, judge or nominee will speak in a female or people of color voice. I need not remind you that Justice Clarence Thomas represents a part but not the whole of African-American thought on many subjects. Yet, because I accept the proposition that, as Judge Resnik describes it, "to judge is an exercise of power" and because as, another former law school classmate, Professor Martha Minnow of Harvard Law School, states "there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives - no neutrality, no escape from choice in judging," I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that--it's an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others. Not all women or people of color, in all or some circumstances or indeed in any particular case or circumstance but enough people of color in enough cases, will make a difference in the process of judging.

The Minnesota Supreme Court has given an example of this. As reported by Judge Patricia Wald formerly of the D.C. Circuit Court, three women on the Minnesota Court with two men dissenting agreed to grant a protective order against a father's visitation rights when the father abused his child. The Judicature Journal has at least two excellent studies on how women on the courts of appeal and state supreme courts have tended to vote more often than their male counterpart to uphold women's claims in sex discrimination cases and criminal defendants' claims in search and seizure cases. As recognized by legal scholars, whatever the reason, not one woman or person of color in any one position but as a group we will have an effect on the development of the law and on judging.

In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.



Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I 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.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

I also hope that by raising the question today of what difference having more Latinos and Latinas on the bench will make will start your own evaluation. For people of color and women lawyers, what does and should being an ethnic minority mean in your lawyering? For men lawyers, what areas in your experiences and attitudes do you need to work on to make you capable of reaching those great moments of enlightenment which other men in different circumstances have been able to reach. For all of us, how do change the facts that in every task force study of gender and race bias in the courts, women and people of color, lawyers and judges alike, report in significantly higher percentages than white men that their gender and race has shaped their careers, from hiring, retention to promotion and that a statistically significant number of women and minority lawyers and judges, both alike, have experienced bias in the courtroom?

Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

 

[amicus]

There are reasons for, 'talking points' whether from Ann Coulter or someone else and those are: they summarize and condense lengthy tomes, such as you copied and pasted and few here will take the time to either read or research.

For example, the essence of your quoted piece might be summarized thus:

"...Professor Martha Minnow of Harvard Law School, states "there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives - no neutrality, no escape from choice in judging," I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that--it's an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others..."

But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

I will draw the conclusion you avoid by the bolded portion, which is a re-iteration of left wing liberal philosophy that objectivity, truth, is impossible and we are all deterministically programmed by our different perspectives.

Thus, to be fair and equal, one would require at least one representative from each and every minority group under the umbrella of America.

Since that is an impossibility, man long ago undertook to strive for objectivity and Veritas, above and beyond the personal perspective.

This foolish, foolish woman openly admits that she will dispense with objectivity and instead lean on her sex and ethnic origin as the 'objective absolutes', she carries with her.

This further foolishness concerning, 'empathy', renders impossible the difficult task of applying the law objectively and without prejudice.

I don't need Coulter or anyone else to illustrate that for me and you shouldn't either, it is Civics 101, an introductory class.

Amicus

 

[DeeZire]

What would the political spinmasters say if some white guy said that a white male would more often reach a better conclusion than a Hispanic female?

Isn't your question out of context? If white males will be making decisions specific to Latina females, I would think Latina females would be more qualified to make those decisions. That's just common sense.

It’s not the rule of law, it’s the rule of lawyers: That’s the central message conveyed by Pres. Barack Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor!...

It's always been the rule of lawyers. That's why Supreme Court decisions are usually split 5/4. If it was the rule of law, there would be no need for a Supreme Court.

Anyone grousing about Sotomayer's appointment need only look to the Clarence Thomas fiasco. His competency rating was fair-to-middlin' - far below Sotomayer's rating. If it's okay for conservatives to appoint unqualified right wing judges, it should be perfectly acceptable for liberals to appoint qualified but objectionable liberal judges. She is, after all, replacing a liberal judge.

 

[sr71plt]

Anyone grousing about Sotomayer's appointment need only look to the Clarence Thomas fiasco. His competency rating was fair-to-middlin' - far below Sotomayer's rating. If it's okay for conservatives to appoint unqualified right wing judges, it should be perfectly acceptable for liberals to appoint qualified but objectionable liberal judges. She is, after all, replacing a liberal judge.

No fair to resort to common sense on a Sore Loser Club-initiated thread!

 

[ishtat]

I have now read a few of her judgments and think it would be foolish to suggest she cannot handle the role based on speeches she has made.

Her legal work is thorough, orthodox, methodical even a bit dull. One may not always agree with her conclusions but the discipline and method she uses when making judgments looks very solid. There doesn't seem to be any unusual degree of judicial law making. Perhaps something will come up in the hearings but I suspect anyone who wants to take her on will need to very well prepared.