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President Obama has nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as his first appointment to the court.
If confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, Judge Sotomayor, 54, would replace Justice David H. Souter to become the second woman on the court and only the third female justice in the history of the Supreme Court. She also would be the first Hispanic justice to serve on the Supreme Court.
Conservative groups reacted with sharp criticism on Tuesday morning. “Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written,” said Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network…
Judge Sotomayor has sat for the last 11 years on the federal appeals bench in Manhattan. As the top federal appeals court in the nation’s commercial center, the court is known in particular for its expertise in corporate and securities law. For six years before that, she was a federal district judge in New York…
Born in the Bronx on June 23, 1954, she was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 8. Her father, a factory worker, died a year later. Her mother, a nurse at a methadone clinic, raised her daughter and a younger son on a modest salary.
Judge Sotomayor graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude in 1976 and and attended Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She spent five years as a prosecutor with the Manhattan district attorney’s office before entering private practice.
But she longed to return to public service, she said, inspired by the “Perry Mason” series she watched as a child. In 1992, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan recommended the politically centrist lawyer to President George H. W. Bush.
It’s not out of line that a traditional conservative Republican appointed her. Her life is a Horatio Alger story – the sort that inspired generations of Americans to aspire for a better life.
Previously approved by two bi-partisan efforts in Congress, no doubt the Party of “NO” will waste a couple of months on preaching their ideology, trying to stop her appointment to the bench.
#21 – soundwash
>>whenever she spoke of herself or
>>accomplishments, her eyelids where fluttering
>>like she was in a sand storm.
Oh man. Shit-can the bitch’s nomination, and lock her away in Gitmo. No law degree? No problem!! A chronic and serial groper and abuser of female colleagues? Break out the party hats for the appointment gala!
But an EYE FLUTTERER???? OBIE, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?? HAVE YOU NO SHAME? NO PRIDE??
#49 – Fredo
>>Rush Limbaugh says she is a reverse racist…he
>>made the case today…and I agree with him.
Fredo, you ALWAYS agree with whatever Rush says. That’s why they call you DITTOHEAD>
I would rather see a dumbass liberal replace another dumbass liberal than have a smart liberal replace a dumbass liberal. I hope she is confirmed. Her fellow judges and previous clerks have all but called her a dumbass with an inflated view of her own abilities.
I need a fucking beer.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial opinions are marked by diligence, depth and unflashy competence. If they are not always a pleasure to read, they are usually models of modern judicial craftsmanship, which prizes careful attention to the facts in the record and a methodical application of layers of legal principles.
(New York Times) http://tinyurl.com/q5d3to
The most consistent concern was that Sotomayor, although an able lawyer, was “not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench,” as one former Second Circuit clerk for another judge put it. “She has an inflated opinion of herself, and is domineering during oral arguments, but her questions aren’t penetrating and don’t get to the heart of the issue.” (During one argument, an elderly judicial colleague is said to have leaned over and said, “Will you please stop talking and let them talk?”) Second Circuit judge Jose Cabranes, who would later become her colleague, put this point more charitably in a 1995 interview with The New York Times: “She is not intimidated or overwhelmed by the eminence or power or prestige of any party, or indeed of the media.”
Her opinions, although competent, are viewed by former prosecutors as not especially clean or tight, and sometimes miss the forest for the trees. It’s customary, for example, for Second Circuit judges to circulate their draft opinions to invite a robust exchange of views. Sotomayor, several former clerks complained, rankled her colleagues by sending long memos that didn’t distinguish between substantive and trivial points, with petty editing suggestions–fixing typos and the like–rather than focusing on the core analytical issues.
Some former clerks and prosecutors expressed concerns about her command of technical legal details: In 2001, for example, a conservative colleague, Ralph Winter, included an unusual footnote in a case suggesting that an earlier opinion by Sotomayor might have inadvertently misstated the law in a way that misled litigants. The most controversial case in which Sotomayor participated is Ricci v. DeStefano, the explosive case involving affirmative action in the New Haven fire department, which is now being reviewed by the Supreme Court. A panel including Sotomayor ruled against the firefighters in a perfunctory unpublished opinion. This provoked Judge Cabranes, a fellow Clinton appointee, to object to the panel’s opinion that contained “no reference whatsoever to the constitutional issues at the core of this case.” (The extent of Sotomayor’s involvement in the opinion itself is not publicly known.)
Like I said, one dumbass replacing another dumbass. No foul no harm….
#63, Cow-Patty,
Actually, I have it bookmarked.
So when are you going to post that link where Barney Frank blamed the voters for corruption in Washington?
Have you found where it is unconstitutional for Congress to set CEO’s wages?
It has been months and you still can’t back up your claims. Gee, another new one today. Either you enjoy being made an asshole or you are just plain stooopid. Good chance you are both.
“Sotomayor is not smart.”
Despite what legal scholars say, you mean.
And since when have conservatives cared about “smart”? Isn’t that elitist?
And it’s laughable to even bring the subject up when you have, say, Scalia on the bench. The single dumbest justice ever to wear a robe. Scalia has uttered things so stupid that they’ve even baffled conservative legal scholars. His analogies are regularly torn to shreds by counsel at oral argument.
And let’s not even talk about Thomas, shall we?
To know the intent of the author, his words must be interpreted as he meant them, defined as they were in his day.
How can you ever know someone’s intentions? No matter what they say or do they could always be lying or deceiving.
Ha! Do I hear conservatives talking about “judicial constraint”? Do I actually hear them saying things like “states rights”? Do I hear “originalism”?
3 words: Bush v. Gore
That case has forever closed the argument about whether the conservatives on the court are “activists” or not.
Cornholer: If you’re worried about those issues, I suggest that you avoid at all costs looking at what clerks and legal scholars have said of Scalia, Thomas and Alito.
Taco bell will be building a new franchise near the supreme court its been reported
Unless a nominee is willing to bring back Dred Scott, the conservatives are going to call them a flaming lib.
37 of her relatives will arrive in washington for the confirmation hearings all in one car. With the mother Mary glued to the dash.
Oh, c’mon Alfred. Nobody believes the conservative line about “judicial activism” any more.
You guys LOVE conservative judicial activism.
#73 – Fissile One
>>Cow-Patty….when? where?
Haw haw! Following up, with Paddy-RAMBO? He’s going to have to stop posting, as his blunders all live on in infamy. Forever.
#75 – Wretched Gnu
>>3 words: Bush v. Gore
Yes, the radical right forever closed the door on any imaginary claim they may have thought they had to moral superiority with that one.
The slime of Bush v. Gore will taint the party long after Bush and Gore have gone to meet the FSM.
#78 – Fredo
>>Hence Christendom is in such disarray.
You bet your boots it is.
Christianity has been hijacked by the right-wing sanctimonious hypocritical fucktards like Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Fallwell and his “Agree With Me or Shut the Fuck Up” so-called “university”, and the rest of the “evangelical” cancer that afflicts our society.
Had Christ not risen from the dead, he’d be rolling over in his grave.
Even a liar uses words that have a set meaning to him, to communicate his lie. Word have set meaning in their context…or they have no meaning and we are all doomed…nothing is sacred…nothing is sure. Every contract…every agreement…every treaty …subject to a new interpretation.
None of that has anything to do with knowing someone’s intention. You can never with 100% certainty know someone’s intentions.
She has to make it through confirmation hearings.
Every New Yorker has skeletons in the closet because that’s how the game has to be played in New York.
I’d say odds of confirmation: 30%
Eidard should have the words “(Democratic Party Fanboy)” next to his name in all of his posts, since he’s so obsessed with promoting it in the same way a Scientologist promotes his own.
#75
Just how do you feel Bush v Gore was activism?
In my view it was counter activism a ruling that an activist state supreme court went outside the Constitution by changing the rules of the Florida election.
Elections are to be determined by the rules in effect prior to the election.
Referees use the rulebook, the league may change the rules, but it is decidedly inappropriate to do so during the game.
>Has there been a single supreme court decision more “activist” — more usurping of a State’s right to conduct its own election — than Bush v. Gore? Ever?
Baker v Carr eliminated state Senates built like the US Senate.
>According to conservative logic, no non-white could ever legitimately occupy a seat of power. They will always-already be “affirmative action” cases and the consequence of “reverse discrimination”.
A good reason to eliminate affirmative action.
#76
“Cornholer: If you’re worried about those issues, I suggest that you avoid at all costs looking at what clerks and legal scholars have said of Scalia, Thomas and Alito.”
Yeah you’ll read about how great those justices are. We need fewer justices looking at foreign law in place of the Constitution and more like Scalia, Thomas and Alito who do their job responsibly.
#73 hey jackass all I hear is hyperbole from your gobstopper. That is, back up you assertions and stop spewing bunk about these great sober legal philosopher kings like Scalia, Thomas and Alito.
From your view, who would be better? A judicial hack like Thurgood Marshall?
http://powerlineblog.com/
Take a look at the entries in the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary, and compare Alito and this woman.
Essentially, it’s ‘she’s likable enough’ and ‘articulate’.
#95 Exactly! To quote someone many readers here admire….she’s a “useful idiot”!
HAR!
I hope the repugnicans are right about her. She is certainly well qualified with an excellent education. If she is as liberal as they say, we could use that on the bench. We’ve got too many neocons there now.
What worries me is that she may turn out to be an unpleasant surprise.
She has two cases on record where she supported an anti-choice stance and one on record where she failed to support an issue of separation of church and state.
http://tinyurl.com/o4k8gs
http://tinyurl.com/pk5z2u
I’m concerned that she’s not liberal enough to balance out the extreme right wing supremes already on the bench.
#97–Scott==your links don’t support your concerns at all. Dismissing a case for lack of standing tells you NOTHING about the “political leanings” of a judge.
You demonstrate what is so wrong in “evaluating” a judge as liberal or conservative. Unless you argue the issue from the perspective of the actual issues/laws/arguments/facts before the judge in the given case under review, you say (again) NOTHING about the judge’s personal bias.
Its not “bias” to follow the law and dismiss a case, with the majority, because of a lack of standing.
Your posts validity is on a par with criticizing her for “not being intelligent.”