Posted on 07/13/2009 11:54:35 AM PDT by Zakeet
Senate Republicans mounted a surprisingly tough attack to open Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing Monday, with Sen. Jeff Sessions calling her belief in the importance of a judge’s personal background “shocking and offensive to me.”
“I will not vote for—no senator should vote for—an individual nominated by any president who believes it is acceptable for a judge to allow their own personal background, gender, prejudices, or sympathies to sway their decision in favor of, or against, parties before the court,” said Session (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
While some had expected Republican senators to step gingerly around issues close to the nominee’s ethnicity, Sessions quickly took aim at Sotomayor over her ruling last year against a group of white firefighters who sued the city of New Haven, Conn. after it canceled a promotional exam because African American firefighters did not do well enough to be promoted.
“Judge Sotomayor has said that she accepts that her opinions, sympathies, and prejudices will affect her rulings. Could it be that her time as a leader of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, a fine organization, provides a clue as to her decision against the firefighters?” Sessions said. “It seems to me that... Judge Sotomayor’s empathy for one group of firefighters turned out to be prejudice against the others.”
The comments by Sessions, along with other GOP senators, came as a bit of a surprise given the lack of suspense about the ultimate outcome for a judge likely to be installed as the first Hispanic woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Forget Texas, Thank God for Alabama. They have shown the most stones of any congresscritter the last few years.
Still, I have no doubt she'd take the liberal view on abortion and affirmative action.
Does what she say also apply to white women? By implication, it seems that what she said about white men also applies to white women.
Maybe it is just me, but I thought that Justice was supposed to be BOTH color and gender blind. Maybe it is just me, bu I feel a little uncomfortable with this nominee. I need to hear more about her, and I need to hear her explain her side of the controversy about Latin women versus white men.
NOTE: I hope the nominee has not forgotten that many "Latin" men are white, because they are the descendants of the Spaniards who followed Columbus to the New World after 1492.
You beat me to it. At least they recognized that. I have been very impressed with Sessions since the Alito and Roberts hearings.
The fact that this even has to be news is sad. They should be tough and fight every day they are on the job. Maybe they would win more elections that way.
Sessions has always had them. The question is whether his spirited and principled opposition to this hack will encourage others to grow some...
The Republicans are presenting substantive ISSUES, not contrived BS like pubic hairs on soda cans.
They will bring up many issues. They will bring up her comment on gun rights not being states rights....but she will confirm. It is like fighting the devil, Schumer and the liberals are slick as snakeoil salesmen.
I’m sure she thinks she’s a foregone conclusion.
By Ann Coulter
HUMAN EVENTS---Vol. 53 Issue 39, p 11,
17 OCTOBER 1997
PROBABLE CAUSE FOR REJECTING JUDGE SOTOMAYOR (Sotomayor was then on the Clinton's fast track to the Supreme Court)
SOTOMAYOR'S ACTUAL WORDS FROM THE BENCH, SENTENCING ADMITTED DRUG DEALER Louis Gomez (a noncitizen), who pleaded guilty to dealing cocaine:
“[I]t is in some respects a great tragedy for our country that instead of permitting you to serve a lesser sentence and rejoin your family at an earlier time I am required by law to give you the statutory minimum. ... [W]e all understand that you were in part a victim of the economic necessities of our society, unfortunately there are laws that I must impose. “Louis Gomez, yours is the tragedy of our laws and the greatest one that I know. ... the one our congressmen never thought about and don’t think about. ... “It is no comfort to you for me to say that I am deeply, personally sorry about the sentence that I must impose, because the law requires me to do so. The only statement I can make is this is one more example of an abomination being committed before our sight. You do not deserve this, sir.”
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Nelson Castellanos was arrested in NYC outside his Harlem apartment, charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine. He was holding his keys and a white shopping bag containing about $10,000, mostly in $1 and $20 bills. That evening, pursuant to a warrant, DEA personnel searched his apartment and found over 1,200 grams of cocaine, six live rounds of ammunition, a .44 caliber revolver and incriminating notebooks. All this evidence was thrown out by District Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the grounds that the DEA agents had not provided the magistrate with probable cause to search Castellanos's apartment.
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Sotomayor served on the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund's board of directors from 1980-1992. The organization publicly defended members of a violent Puerto Rican terrorist group---the FALN.
QUESTION Did Soto have anything to do with Pres Clinton pardoning jailed members of the FALN----violent Puerto Rican terrorists who bombed US installations? Pardoned----so that then-Senate candidate Hillary could harvest the NY latino vote.
Is that what the WH is trying to hide by refusing to handover Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund's official records?
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ACT NOW Call 202-225-3121 (Congress switchboard). Every senator should get 10-15,000 calls from Americans. Even with Dems in control, that many calls could make a difference.
MESSAGE TO SENATORS: Americans are sending the word across the land: "Sotomayor's rulings shows she would make policy through the court. The US Constitution precludes judges from making policy and laws. It is understandable that Americans are apprehensive: Sotomayor and her crowd are colluding to exert raw power over the majority---to turn the US into a failed Third World satrap. These racialists do not understand a sophisticated superpower----a democracy governed by the rule of law, based on three co-equal branches of government." END MESSAGE Any Senator who votes to confirm Sotomayor risks his/her reelection chances.
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REFERENCE Sotomayor's secret files: What don't the Democrats want us to see?
Washington Times | Friday, July 10, 2009 | Editorial
FR Posted by JohnRLott
We wonder what Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has to hide. Her confirmation hearing starts Monday, but the White House refuses to turn over boxes of documents for review about her past. Republican senators requested board meeting minutes of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, where Ms. Sotomayor served on the board of directors from 1980-1992.
White House Counsel Greg Craig contends that all documents deemed "responsive" already were sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Contrary to White House dodging, these board meetings may be important in evaluating Ms. Sotomayor's legal and policy reasoning because the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund was involved in a wide range of controversial legal cases.
For instance, the fund fought to abolish the death penalty. It pushed discrimination cases very similar to the New Haven firefighter case in which Ms. Sotomayor's quota reasoning was unanimously quashed by the Supreme Court. The organization publicly defended members of a violent Puerto Rican terrorist group The organization publicly defended members of a violent Puerto Rican terrorist group (the FALN, pardoned by Clinton to get then-candidate Hillary NY's latino vote)........ . . . . (Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com .....
If the Republicans don’t hold her accountable for her racist and sexist statements, I will have had it with them.
The GOP/the Republicans wouldn’t fight for a good nominee; why would they fight a bad one?
Particularly since the Bush family, McCain, et al., well— they think Sonia’s just great.
http://shinbone.home.att.net/jphant.htm
“Incredibly, Frist himself made this request (asked if Senators Daschle, Leahy, Charles Schumer, Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton would kindly step aside of their own volition) after Estrada had withdrawn himself.
The Senate Majority Leader, who himself could have secured Estrada’s position on the bench if only he’d applied a little pressure, actually said, “I am hopeful that the Democrats will realize that this disservice is inexcusable and simply change behavior.”
I couldn’t bear to watch any of the hearing, for I expected Lindsey Graham-style capitultion across the board.
SC people lack the toughness for which they were once well-known by tolerating Lindsey Graham.
How can this be when Loafers Lindsay (Graham) begins by saying that unless she has a meltdown, she is going to be confirmed. That is not tough to me...:(
Is there any vehicle to let them know we have concerns and it is not a done deal? Any way to change this?
Don't ask.....don't tell.......
Wow! Thanks for posting. Hope she has to explain that one during the hearing.
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