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| Yes | 51% | 110 votes | Total: 214 votes | |
| No | 49% | 104 votes |
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Add to FavoritesA Supreme Court nominee is the most important decision a President makes. He or she affects profound legal issues in our lives long after that President has left office. Based on a compelling life story, a changing American electorate and sound legal jurisprudence, Sotomayor should absolutely be confirmed to the Supreme Court. In fact, Sotomayor should receive broad bipartisan support from the U.S. Senate.
Cynical analysts will see Sotomayor's appointment as an affirmative action appointment - that she has been nominated because she is a woman (there's only one, 76-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsberg) and because she would be the first Hispanic to sit on the Court. If confirmed, Sotomayor would be the third women to sit on the Supreme Court. It is true that Hispanics are the fastest growing minority in the U.S.
In the 2008 election, President Obama received 67 percent of the Hispanic vote, compared to 31 percent for Sen. McCain - even though McCain called for immigration reform and a path to citizenship for undocumented workers. To say that Sotomayor was nominated only because she was a woman and Hispanic, would be to deny her long and varied legal career and her compelling life story. It also puts Republicans in an unenviable position: How do you raise legitimate questions about Sotomayor's judicial philosophy and record, without alienating millions of voters? Should they appeal to their base and become more conservative, or should they attempt to re-create the "big tent" former President Reagan had in the 1980s?
Critics also say that several of Sotomayor's speeches show that she will not apply the law, that instead, she will apply the law only to certain segments of the population, especially minorities. In the speech she gave at Berekely in 2002, Sotomayor quotes another judge, Judge Cedarbaum, as saying that, "judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law." Sotomayor continues, "Although I agree with and attempt to work toward Judge Cedarbaum's aspiration, I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases. And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society." All Sotomayor is doing here is stating the obvious - that we are colored by our experiences, but that doesn't mean she would not fairly apply the law.
Sotomayor grew up in a public housing project, graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, and was editor of the Yale Law Review. For those that are interested, here is the questionairre she filled out for the Senate Judiciary Committee. It's clear that there are parallels between Obama and Sotomayor. Here's the bottom line: We still have much to learn about Sotomayor's judicial philosophy, and this needs a full debate over the next several months. But she reflects America. She deserves this chance. And she will be seated when the Supreme Court resumes in October.
Learn more about this author, James Zipadelli.
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No
For more than five centuries, "Lady Justice" has been recognized the world over as the symbol of judicial impartiality, but the recent nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court threatens to remove the famous statue's blindfold forever. President Obama's choice of Sotomayor seems to be another of his flawed appointments that should be added to the growing list of those individuals who were either not properly vetted, such as former Senator Tom Dashle, whose tax problems led to the withdrawal of his nomination as Health and Human Services Secretary, or those whose infractions were blatantly ignored, as in the case of tax-cheat, Timothy Geithner, now heading up the IRS and the Treasury.
In a public apology, in an interview Friday with NBC's Brian Williams, the President said that Judge Sotomayor used a "poor choice of words" when in a 2001 interview at Berkeley, she responded to the Sandra Day O'Connor quote "a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding case". Sotomayor put her own spin on the former Justice's famous quote by saying, "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."
On the contrary, I believe Judge Sotomayor made an excellent choice of words. Not because they are acceptable-they certainly are not; but rather because they accurately represent how she feels about racial equality. To determine if her statement is racist, reverse the subjects and see how you feel after re-reading her quote: "I would hope that a wise white male with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina female who hasn't lived that life." Any white male nominee who made a statement like that would have already withdrawn his name from nomination.
If this was an isolated quote or incident, one may be able to accept the President's glossing over of her so-called "poor choice of words"; however Sotomayor has repeatedly shown that to her, racial preference trumps fairness. In the well-publicized Ricci vs. DeStefano case, eighteen white New Haven, Connecticut firefighters' tests were discarded and their promotions denied because no African-Americans passed the test. Frank Ricci, a 34-year old dyslexic firefighter who worked extra-hard to pass the test, subsequently brought a reverse-discriminati on case against the city. When Judge Sotomayor, sitting on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case, she wrote an opinion against it. Fellow 2nd Circuit Court Judge Jose Cabranes remarked that Sotomayor's, "opinion contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims in the case." In what may be the biggest irony in the case, the very court that she is planning to join, may overturn the case before she is even confirmed.
Sotomayor claims her underprivileged upbringing and adversity of growing up in the South Bronx have given her the empathy that she will need on the bench. Ironically, firefighter Frank Ricci also grew up in the South Bronx just a few blocks from her. Yet when it came to the color of Ricci's skin, her empathy was only for those with a certain heritage. The court is supposed to be impartial and unbiased. Sotomayor has certainly conducted voir dire, subsequently eliminating those in the jury pool who may show a bias or prejudice instead of carefully weighing the facts. This is the most basic duty of a jury and the judge. Why won't Judge Sotomayor apply the same standard of impartiality to herself that she requires of a jury pool?
Texas Senator John Cornyn, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said about Sotomayor's revised Justice O'Connor quote, "The American ideal is that justice is colorblind." Dr. Martin Luther King made a similar statement during the Civil Rights era when he said people should "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
The ultimate insult is that President Obama is asking the American people to turn a blind eye on Judge Sotomayor's appointment to the High Court. He has characterized the cries for Sotomayor's withdrawal from nomination as, "nonsense." Mr. President, what is utter nonsense is asking La Justitia-Lady Justice to remove her 500 year-old blindfold and ignore impartiality.
Learn more about this author, Roger D. Bernier.
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