I meant to write about Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, but a rain of domestic terrorism came down from the news and sidetracked me.
Rachel Maddow and Ana Marie Cox say a lot of what I was thinking in the following 10 min. video:
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The Senate would complain no matter what date was set for Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing. Stalling is all they can do, and it doesn’t look like they will get to stall. They will get a few more days (48) than the average number of days (45) to review Judge Sotomayor’s record.
Maybe we have been putting Justices on the Supreme Court who don’t have sufficient experience because it only requires Senators and staff to read 6 cases per day for 45 days to confirm them? Perhaps nominees like Sotomayor should be the standard for the quality of a Justice and not the rest of the current Justices?
That she’s been confirmed twice by the Senate already and is expected to be confirmed unless something horrific turns up should put Senators at ease. Sotomayor is not an unknown. She’s also a centrist, and if anything, will lean the court a little more to the right than to the left.
Come on! Our population is half female with substantial populations of African Americans, Latinos, and Asians; and gays and lesbians. The current Supreme Court is made up of 8 men, 7 of them white, and only one white woman. The Senate seems to be the mostly old white guys’ club.
A person’s gender, race and life experiences do shape who he or she is. It doesn’t make that person a racist or more favorable to one gender over another. Humans are never unbiased. We are capable of being neutral, examining the facts and being logical. No Justice on the Supreme Court is unbiased, not even the white guys.
True justice won’t happen until all of us are represented by people on the Supreme Court and in the Senate who look more like us and have similar life experiences as we do.
I’ll be happy when the Senate looks like the rest of the U.S. population. I’ll be happy when the Justices on the Supreme Court look like the rest of the U.S. population.
Ana Marie Cox, Justice Nomination, Rachel Maddow, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court, Supreme Court Justice Senate confirmation
June 11th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
A lot of conservatives are gunning for Sotomayor and this stalling tactic is just a red herring. The woman’s views on abortion aren’t well known, and even Rush Limba(ugh!) thinks she may be pro-life. Do we want to take that risk? I suggest that even liberals scrutinize her very carefully. Lifetime appointments are serious business.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
@Maggie Sanger: First, I don’t consider Rush Limbaugh a source of anything, other than insanity and bluster.
From conversations with President Obama, Sotomayor is supposedly pro-choice, but she hasn’t ruled on any cases about it as far as we know, hasn’t written any opinions about it, and probably won’t answer any questions about choice in her hearing. We have to hope she will be like Justice Souter, who was supposed to be conservative and ended up being progressive.
Nominees started steering clear of how they might rule on any particular type of case because they can’t actually take a stand on an issue they haven’t heard that could likely come before them on the court. It would be unwise to say “if a case about x is brought before the court while I am on it, I will rule a certain way because of my beliefs.” That’s exactly what the opposition party wants to hear from any nominee because that pretty much disqualifies the nominee. They are supposed to be impartial and fair, and not make up their minds until they have heard a case and applied the law to it to reach an opinion.
I’d feel better if I knew her stance on abortion, but unless we go back to some point where we might find a quote from her about it, we’re not going to know.