It's getting down to time for the August recess and we're getting to see what our legislators plan to do on their summer vacations. Surprisingly enough, it looks like they plan to spend their time campaigning.
One issue Republicans have hit hard is the Sotomayor confirmation vote. In spite of it being a lost cause, they've done their best to please their constituents with outspoken opposition. It's not surprising that they opposed her. After all, Barack Obama, a Democrat last time I checked, nominated her. It's part of the ritual followed by the political tribes that opposition to a candidate for an appointive office be based on reasons other than the candidate's nomination by the opposing party.
In Sotomayor's case it was hard to come up with negatives that carry more weight than "Obama nominated her." She was originally proposed for the federal bench by a Republican president. She served on the federal bench for 17 years and was generally viewed as a good judge. Before serving on the federal bench she worked as a prosecutor and a corporate lawyer. Decisions she participated in were reversed by the Supreme Court at a much lower than average rate for federal judges. She was never considered an ideologue on the bench. She sounds like a Republican's dream.
Due to the reason that may not speak its name, the guys and gals who toil in the Republican spin atelier had to come up with something. The spin folks aren't dummies. The best, brightest, and most conniving of them go on to careers in campaign management, media punditry, lobbying, and political office. Some eventually achieve the coveted think tank sinecure.
OK, courtesy of the spin gnomes and pixies, here are the three main arguments against Sotomayor's confirmation:
- She made a speech that is great fun to quote out of context. Yes, it's the "wise Latina" speech. There's an important lesson here for people who dream of high political office. Never say anything that might be construed as controversial 20 years later and don't be tempted by the opportunity to sound clever.
- She participated in a recent decision that was overturned by the Supreme Court. The case involved a promotional exam for firefighters that was thrown out by a Connecticut town ostensibly because it discriminated against minority applicants. The federal appeals court affirmed the decision of a lower court siding with the city on the basis of precedent. The Supreme Court, in what some might characterize as an activist decision, reversed the ruling of the lower court. Neither Sotomayor or her colleagues on the circuit court considered the issue of racial preference in their decision, only that precedent seemed to uphold the decision of the lower court.
- Then there's guns. Sotomayor joined a circuit court opinion finding that state and local governments had the authority to limit gun ownership. Later this year the more conservative 7th circuit court reached a similar conclusion. In the case where Sotomayor sided with the majority she didn't write the opinion.
There you have it. 17 years on the federal bench and only 3 things that an intelligent, hard working, and well funded group of researchers could find to complain about. In politics a record like that is normally sufficient grounds for beatification.
Tradition demands that Democrats behave in the same way in similar circumstances. I detest John Roberts but think that there was no reason to deny him a seat on the Supreme Court if a clean judicial record and the respect of one's peers are the important criteria for confirmation. This is a ritual that involves a sort of morality play where politicians play roles developed over many decades. I guess the repetition is comforting for some.
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Comments: 7
When one goes further and includes the whole context around that infamous quote, it's even more damning than when when taken out of the context.
"...only 3 things that an intelligent, hard working, and well funded group of researchers could find to complain about."
Not hardly. We could spend all day talking about complaints against Sotomayor and her racist behaviors, over the years. How about her membership in La Raza (translated "the Race") the largest Brown Supremacist organization in America, heavily backed by the biggest corporations in America ?
Or her membership and member of the Board of Directors of the racist Puerto Rican Legal Defense & Education Fund ? Hmmm ?
Since most people are unaware of what's been going on behind the curtains, for many years, here's a rundown of the activites of the PRLDEF during the years when Sotomayor was directing its activities :
A report by the public-interest group Judicial Watch highlights a number of additional positions taken by PRLDF during the 1980s and early 1990s. The following examples are excerpted from the report:
In 1980, when then-New York City Mayor Ed Koch criticized a Supreme Court decision that upheld racial quotas, the PRLDEF signed a statement characterizing the comments as "'ill-informed, rhetorically excessive and unnecessarily divisive."
In 1981, the PRLDEF supported a lawsuit that contended an entry-level government test, known as Professional Administrative Careers Examination, had an adverse impact on the African and Hispanic Americans who failed the exam. The lawsuit argued the test, therefore, violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act ...
In 1981, the PRLDEF applauded a decision by a federal judge that forced teachers at an Ann Arbor Michigan elementary school to undergo "consciousness raising" about a dialect spoken by young black children called "Black English." The training program cost taxpayers $44,000. The civil rights attorney who handled the case, Gabe Kaimowitz, worked for the PRLDEF. He said his intent was to make the lawsuit the "basis of suits against schools in Chicago and New York, and to extend the suit to embrace not only poor blacks but poor Puerto Rican students," who supposedly spoke a dialect known as "Spanglish."
In 1983, the PRLDEF filed a complaint against Elizabeth, New Jersey Mayor Thomas Dunn following a City Hall directive requiring staff to speak English while on the job. Ignacio Perez, a staff attorney with the PRLDEF, admitted that no one in the mayor's office had filed any complaints related to the directive.
In 1988, the PRLDEF engaged in a battle with the New York City Police Department over its "racist" promotion exam, ultimately presiding over a radical redesign to allow more minorities to achieve a passing grade. According to The New York Times: "The new test, a four-part exam prepared with the help of an expert designated by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund … involved changes in format, including the addition of open-book questions and a video portion."
In 1990, the PRLDEF attacked then-New York Mayor David Dinkins after the mayor labeled three Puerto Rican "nationalists" who shot five members of Congress in 1954 "assassins." The radicals were members of a violent Puerto Rican terrorist group Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN). The PRLDEF said the mayor's comments "lacked sensitivity." Reuben Franco, President of the PRLDEF, said: "[Mayor Dinkins] doesn't recognize that to many people in Puerto Rico, these are fighters for freedom and justice, for liberation, just as is Nelson Mandela, who himself advocated bearing arms.''
In 1990, the PRLDEF opposed a bill under consideration by the New York City Council that "would have required retailers to post at their storefronts English language signs explaining the nature of their businesses." A spokesman for the PRLDEF said the bill ... would "create more animosity between different groups."
In 1991, the PRLDEF filed a lawsuit against a consortium of non-profit organizations in New York City seeking to renew some of the city's worst slums by developing middle-class housing projects. The program had been enormously successful.... According to estimates, 80% of the new homeowners were African American, Asian or Hispanic. The PRLDEF argued that the city and state subsidies that helped drive the project should be allocated for low-income housing.
An issue that is currently high on the LatinoJustice PRLDF agenda is the quest for amnesty and expanded civil rights for illegal aliens living in the United States. Calling itself "the premier Latino organization fighting for the rights of day laborers throughout the Northeast," LatinoJustice PRLDF supports "immigration reform" that "will contain a path for legalization and citizenship for the millions of undocumented living in the United States."
When the tuition rate for what LatinoJustice PRLDF calls "undocumented students" (i.e., illegal aliens) at the City University of New York increased dramatically in 2001, the organization brought a lawsuit that successfully challenged those higher costs, thus making illegal immigrants graduating from New York State high schools eligible for the same State tuition rates available to legal residents.
A prime objective of LatinoJustice PRLDF is to help develop Latino attorneys who -- by forging alliances with civil rights organizations, civil liberties groups, and government agencies -- can influence public opinion and the crafting of legislation pertaining to illegal aliens' rights. Toward this end, in June 2005 LatinoJustice PRLDF launched its LAWbound initiative aimed at "increasing the number of Latinos who successfully stay on the path to law school."
LatinoJustice PRLDF has litigated in numerous districting and redistricting cases. It sponsors training sessions and workshops aimed at increasing the number of race-based redistricting plans that serve to guarantee political election victories for Latinos.
"Neither Sotomayor or her colleagues on the circuit court considered the issue of racial preference in their decision."
That's what's wrong with her decision. The racist racial preference exhibited by the sore loser black firefighters (who probably just didn't study hard enough), by the black minister cozy with the New Haven Mayor (DeStefano), the mayor himself, and the New Haven Civil Service Board, shoud have been taken into account because it was all unlawful, in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.