Obama's Supreme Choice

Citing her "rigorous intellect" and her "commitment to impartial justice," President Obama yesterday nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor, a federal appeals judge from New York, to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. Legal scholars argue that her record suggests similarities wither the man she is replacing. Thomas Goldstein, a Washington-based Supreme Court lawyer, said that both Sotomayor and Souter "seem to fit smack dab in the center-left." Born into the Bronxdale housing projects in New York City, Sotomayor is now poised to become the first Latina to sit on the Supreme Court. Moreover, Judge Sotomayorbrings more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any Justice in the last century. A top graduate of Princeton and Yale Law School, Sotomayor would join the Court as the only member who has previously served as a trial judge. "This wealth of experiences, personal and professional, have helped me appreciate the variety of perspectivesthat present themselves in every case that I hear," Sotomayor said yesterday. "It has helped me to understand, respect, and respond to the concerns and arguments of all litigants who appear before me, as well as to the views of my colleagues on the bench." 

REGARD FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES: Throughout her career, Sotomayor has shown great respect for the civil liberties protected by the Constitution. InPapineau v. Parmley, a suit brought by Native Americans who were beaten, dragged by their hair, and choked by police in order to break up a peaceful protest, Sotomayor held that the Constitution has no patience for law enforcement officers who disrupt peaceful protest with violence. Similarly, in Ford v. McGinnis, Sotomayor held that a prison could not deny Muslim inmates their First Amendment right to participate in the traditional meal celebrating the conclusion of Ramadan merely because prison officials determine that this traditional celebration was not sufficiently important to Muslims. And in Malesko v. Correctional Services Corporation, she held that a privatized prison corporation can be held accountable for unconstitutionally subjecting their inmates to cruel and unusual treatment. These cases represent a marked change from the decisions of right-wing judges favored by President Bush. Indeed, five conservative Supreme Court justices voted to reverse Sotomayor's decision in Malesko, holding instead that the prison industry is immune to liability under the Constitution. Sotomayor's civil liberties opinions are also a drastic departure from those of conservative justices who believe that Guantanamo Bay is a Constitution-free zone. 

EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW: Sotomayor has shown that she believes that laws intended to protect children, workers, minorities, and the disadvantaged cannot be ignored by the courts. "I strive never to forget the real-world consequences of my decisions on individuals, businesses, and government," she said yesterday. Dissenting in Gant v. Wallingford Board of Education, Sotomayor refused to join a decision by two of her colleagues that stripped a public school student of his basic right to be free from racial discrimination. Ray Gant, Jr. was the only African-American child in his first grade class when he was suddenly demoted back to kindergarten. Although the evidence showed that white students were provided with "compensatory education, testing or transitional classes" before they were demoted to a lower grade, Gant was denied these opportunities. Rejecting the majority's decision to throw Gant out of court before a jury could even hear his case, Sotomayor stood up for the same basic principle announced in Brown v. Board of Education: "Ray was entitled to an equal opportunity to learn." Similarly, Sotomayor has stood up for the right of the disabled to continue working, and she has reaffirmed the basic truth that courts "do not cut corners" in habeas cases.  Indeed, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney praised her as a judge who "has enforced the right to be free of all types of discrimination in the workplace, to be paid the correct wages and to receive health benefits to which employees are entitled. She has recognized that persecution for union activity can be a basis for granting asylum in this country."

THE SMEAR CAMPAIGN BEGINS: Right-wing groups have already begun distorting Sotomayor's record. Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network admitted that the conservative case against Sotomayor rests on a single out-of-context quote taken from a YouTube video. Motivated in no small part by a desire to stir their donors to pour money into right-wing coffers, conservatives have questioned Sotomayor's intellect, despite the fact that she graduated at the top of her class from Princeton University. They have accused her of "judicial activism," despite being unable to cite a single case where she ignored the law. They have also attacked her forrefusing to twist the law in order to benefit white people.  Indeed, right-wing attacks on Judge Sotomayor has been so strident and unhinged that even the RNC refuses to risk "political peril" by joining their smear campaign. According to talking points leaked to the media, the RNC claims that it "will reserve judgment" on Sotomayor "until more is known" about her judicial record. 

Whoops. The Republican National Committee (RNC) has released to the media its list of talking points on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.