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Republican senators are starting to figure out how they will navigate the racial aspects of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court, showing Sunday that they won't be tongue-tied when it comes to the politically tricky subject. Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic on the high court if confirmed, and just the third woman, and Republicans don't want to appear insensitive to this historic significance during summer hearings. Guarding against any criticism of racial insensitivity, Republican senators on Sunday tried to turn the table on Democrats. They repeatedly invoked the case of Miguel Estrada, President George W. Bush's 2001...

Unless something entirely unforeseen happens, confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will be a lovefest for the Democrats who run the Senate Judiciary Committee. There will be much talk about Sotomayor's historic opportunity to become the first Hispanic on the Court, about her inspiring background, and about the sterling qualifications she would bring to the job. Sotomayor will have the majority party strongly on her side, and odds are things will end happily for her.

Estrada's nomination for a federal judgeship set off alarm bells among Democrats. There is a group of left-leaning organizations -- People for the American Way, NARAL, the Alliance for Justice, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the NAACP, and others -- that work closely with Senate Democrats to promote Democratic judicial nominations and kill Republican ones. They were particularly concerned about Estrada. In November, 2001, representatives of those groups met with Democratic Senate staff. One of those staffers then wrote a memo to Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin, informing Durbin that the groups wanted to stall Bush nominees, particularly three they...

Between now and the final confirmation vote, how many times will we hear of Sonia Sotomayor’s “moving personal narrative”? But as Pat Buchanan, Joe Scarborough and Ann Coulter pointed out this morning, touching personal tales meant nada to Dems when the minority judicial nominee wasn’t a liberal. Clarence Thomas and Miguel Estrada each had moving stories of their own. But that didn’t stop the Dems from savaging the former and filibustering the latter when Republican presidents nominated them to the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, respectively. View videos of Coulter and Morning Joe here.

November 7, 2001/To: Senator Durbin"The groups singled out three--Jeffrey Sutton (6th Circuit); Priscilla Owen (5th Circuit); and Caroline [sic] Kuhl (9th Circuit)--as a potential nominee for a contentious hearing early next year, with a [sic] eye to voting him or her down in Committee. They also identified Miguel Estrada (D.C. Circuit) as especially dangerous, because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment. They want to hold Estrada off as long as possible."

<p>President Obama's radical new nominee to replace Associate Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, used to serve on the board of LatinoJustice PRLDEF (White House backgrounder), one of the racial grievance groups that helped to sink the judicial nomination of Honduran-born Miguel Estrada in 2003.</p>

SNIP This plunge into the murky deep comes from staff strategy memos we've obtained from the days when Democrats ran the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2001-02. Or, rather, appeared to run the committee. Their real bosses are the liberal interest groups that more or less tell the Senators when to sit, speak and roll over--and which Bush judges to confirm or not. Here are some excerpts: November 6, 2001/To: Senator Dick Durbin "You are scheduled to meet with leaders of several civil rights organizations to discuss their serious concerns with the judicial nomination process. The leaders will likely include: Ralph...

A 20-year-old legal fight over protests outside abortion clinics ended Tuesday with the Supreme Court ruling that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used against demonstrators. The 8-0 decision was a setback for abortion clinics that were buoyed when the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals kept their case alive two years ago despite the high court’s 2003 ruling that had cleared the way for lifting a nationwide injunction on anti-abortion leader Joseph Scheidler and others. Anti-abortion groups appealed to the justices after the lower court sought to determine whether the injunction could be supported by findings that protesters...

Not only is this a sad day for Miguel and Laurie Estrada, but we have all let something unfortunate occur in Washington. We allowed the U.S. Senate to erect a "glass ceiling" in our courts--you can do all the right things in America, but if you do not agree with Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, you need not apply as a federal judge. This is the message that Democrats hope minorities, in particular, get from their victory as they succeeded in repelling a talented man, who happens to be Hispanic, from public service. For the hard left, Miguel Estrada was...

The Supreme Court buzz earlier today was all about Alberto Gonzales (a trial balloon that I think failed badly once again), then Miguel Estrada, then Karen Williams. Now there's an AP story out that adds pretty much every attorney in the United States. Estrada was burned during the hearings and has little stomach for the process -- he was twice nominated and twice filibustered. He's a stealth candidate who is rumored to be pro-life. Estrada allegedly told associates of the National Organization of Women (NOW) at a luncheon in 1994 that he believes abortion to be murder -- but are we really...

...Mr. Lord is at pains to note that, although Judge Smith is less known than other judicial nominees who have come under "borking" assault -- think of William Pryor, Miguel Estrada, Janice Rogers Brown and Charles Pickering -- his experience offers a kind of template of abuse: Activist groups unearth whatever harmful details they can find, no matter how dubious; they gin them up into screaming charges; the charges in turn get picked up by reporters, eager to keep pace with a potential "controversy," and by politicians, eager to find any stick with which to beat a "dangerous" nominee from...

"Estradification": In the spirit of confirmation battles spawning a new lexicon (e.g., "Borking") the Washington Times reports today [http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050721-115711-9900r.htm] on what some Republicans are calling "Estradification"--requiring the Justice Department to turn over internal legal memoranda written by Roberts while he worked in the SG's office. The refusal by the White House to surrender these sorts of documents was the basis for the Estrada filibuster (hence the name) as well as the current Bolton stalemate. Regardless of the merits of the request, it seems highly unlikely that the White House will surrender these documents. The tone of the article suggests that...

July 05, 2005, Sinister Strategies The Left's plan to block judicial nominees. All weekend we heard from the likes of Ralph Neas (People for the American Way), Nan Aron (Alliance for Justice), and other leaders of a left-wing coalition insisting that President Bush nominate a "mainstream conservative" to the Supreme Court, or that he unite the nation with a "pragmatist" or "moderate" in the character of Sandra Day O'Connor. This is real chutzpah. These are the same people and groups that have conspired to undermine President Bush's judicial appointments for over four years, and now seek to derail any nominee...

Two Sandra Day O'Connors have served as Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court. It makes a world of difference which one President Bush chooses to replace. First, we look at the late O'Connor, the one who is retiring. The L.A. Times asserted this week that O'Connor “alone was in the majority of every one of the court’s 13 5-4 decisions this last term.” There are two tiny problems with this assertion. There were 24 such decisions this Term. And, Justices Souter and Scalia were in the majority in them more often than Justice O’Connor. See SCOTUSBlog for the facts....

Among his most vocal opponents was none other than Chief Justice Earl Warren. According to RFK, Warren responded to the Hastie proposal with marked rejection: "He's not a liberal, and he'll be opposed to all the measures that we are interested in, and he just would be completely unsatisfactory." Warren's "liberal" peer, Justice William Douglas, told Kennedy that Hastie would be "just one more vote for Frankfurter." Thus, two Supreme Court "liberals" (and an array of Kennedy Administration officials suspicious of Judge Hastie's political leanings) spiked the ascent of the would-be first black Justice.

Laury Gordon Estrada ESTRADA, LAURY GORDON Of Alexandria, VA, passed away unexpectedly on November 28, 2004. She was 46. She is survived by her loving mother, Ruby Gordon; and her devoted husband, Miguel Estrada. She also leaves behind her three loving dogs, Zeus, Ruby and Jackson and her chestnut mare, Lily, all of whom she loved deeply. Laury worked for many years as an Attorney in various positions in the Department of Justice, including the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering section, the Office of Legislative Affairs and the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. She was...

To resolve any concern that I would block pro-life judicial nominees, take a look at my record. I have consistently opposed any litmus test. I have backed that up by voting to confirm pro-life nominees including Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justice Anthony Kennedy. I led the fight to confirm Justice Clarence Thomas, which almost cost me my Senate seat in 1992. I have voted for all of President Bush's judicial nominees in committee and on the floor. The current controversy was artificially created by incorrect reporting. I never "warned" the president on...

Mr. Leahy’s unprecedented stonewalling of judges (49 of Mr. Bush’s nominees are still pending) fed the public perception that today’s Democrats deal from the bottom of the deck. Special credit goes to liberal lobbyist Ralph Neas, whose tireless slander of qualified judges helped boost GOP turnout in Texas, Georgia and Missouri. The Bush nominees should put Mr. Neas on their Christmas list.

Frist aide says feds may have Durbin in crosshairs Due to pressure following his release of condemning memos about Circuit Court nominee Miguel Estrada, written by U.S. Senator Dick Durbin's Judiciary Committee staff, Manuel Miranda resigned his post Friday on U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's staff. WASHINGTON DC -- U.S. Senate staffer Manuel Miranda, who resigned Friday under pressure after U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) launched an investigation into the source of the leak of condemning memos written by his staffers, revealed today Durbin himself may be under investigation for leaking classfied information. Last autumn, memos written by Democrat...

No, I’m not in favor of bigotry itself. That attitude, wherever it is found, is a cancer on the American body politic. But I am in favor of the recapture of the word “bigotry” from those who hold it hostage, and its frequent and vigorous application wherever it is earned. Ask most people what bigotry means, and the dominant answer will be that it is “discrimination against blacks (and other people of color) by whites.” A few will give a broader and better answer, that it is “discrimination against people of different races or religions than yours.” That’s better, but...