So basso is this what the repbulican mem is alluding to when they say that Sotomayer should not be "without Undue Influence" from Her Race And Gender? ------------- Today, U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) made the following statement regarding President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Inhofe was one of 29 U.S. Senators that voted against Sotomayor's nomination to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998. As Eric Kleefeld points out, I wonder if Inhofe felt the same way about the 7 white men on the bench?
as long as they are strict constructionists, i don't care about their race, gender, or personal history.
I like it when the uneducated expound their personal views on constitutional interpretation - which consists of them dim-wittedly repeating a slogan handed down from official party talking points.
You often espouse beliefs that are anything but strict constructionist. This is especially true in regards to "national security" issues.
so, the uneducated shouldn't be allowed to vote, since they have no expertise on constitutional interpretation?
No but they should keep their mouths shut when they're beyond their depth. Which you are on this issue. Especially true when they know they're just going to look stupid in the face of others whose attention and approval they crave, as you surely do at this point in your BBS career.
To me this raises a larger question, though certainly less important: How much of a "group" are Hispanics? Do Puerto Ricans really feel connected to Mexicans or Argentines or Brazilians or Tejanos? I don't think it should matter in whether a Supreme Court justice should be confirmed. (Sotomayor and I have vastly different views in the role of the judiciary and what kind of government was established by the Constitution, but she is certainly qualified.) But I wonder whether a Mexican-American or Tejano feels any pride whatsoever in the appointment of a Puerto Rican to the Court. To me it seems as illogical as a Greek-American or Spanish-American having ethnic pride in the Scalia appointment.
From what I've been hearing Hispanics of all ethnicities are pretty excited by Sotomayor's appointment. While there are differences say between a Peruvian and a Cuban they consider themselves more similar than a Greek or Spaniard.
I will say this about the "controversial" statement. I disagree with her. If who you are affects how you interpret the constitution, we are in trouble as a society. Yes, I've read blink and know bias is internalized so deeply, but that's not what the supreme court is about. That said...there is no way a White Male could make a similar statement. It's like saying that in order to judge environmental issues, one who grew up near a superfund sight will have a better ability to interpret the constituation then someone who grew up in a pristine snow capped forrest. That's hogwash. But there's no equivalent....because whites don't have any clue what being a minority is. That was her point really. But that doesn't matter when it comes to being a SCJOTUS.
I, for one, have no misgivings at all about this nomination. She is highly qualified, and by most accounts I have read, an excellent jurist. She believes that the Constitution says what it says and she has stated that we should honor the words of the Constitution. Time will only tell, but she seems like a very strong selection.
Quote: Sam Sam, do you think that after Gore v. Bush he will still yack about "states rights". Legal realism: What is constitutional is whatever the current S. Ct. say it is.
As a matter of fact it is the opposite. A person without empathy who grew up in a pristine forrest would be likely to make a ****t* decision that would be bad for America.
ricci is another case that sure to get some scrutiny during her confirmation hearings. here's some background: [rquoter] Judge Sonia Sotomayor, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. (AP photo) (CNSNews.com) – U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee, voted to deny a racial discrimination claim in a 2008 decision. She dismissed the case in a one-paragraph statement that, in the opinion of one dissenting judge, ignored the evidence and did not even address the constitutional issues raised by the case. The case, Ricci v. DeStefano, involved a group of 19 white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter who filed suit in 2003 claiming that the city of New Haven, Conn., engaged in racial discrimination when it threw out the results of two promotion tests because none of the city’s black applicants had passed the tests. Each of the plaintiffs had passed the exam. The case is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. The city threw out the results because it feared potential lawsuits from activist groups if few or no minority candidates were promoted. The city also claimed that in addition to potential lawsuits, promotions based on the test results would undermine their goal of diversity in the Fire Department. The firefighters sued, arguing that New Haven was discriminating against them by deciding that the tests would promote too many white candidates and too few minorities. Federal Judge Janet Bond Arterton rejected the firefighters’ appeal, siding with the city and saying that no racial discrimination had occurred because the city didn’t promote anyone at all. U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sotomayor issued an order that affirmed Arterton’s decision, issuing a one-paragraph judgment that called Arterton’s ruling “thorough, thoughtful, and well reasoned,” But according to dissenting Judge Jose Cabranes, the single-paragraph order issued by Sotomayor and her colleagues ignored over 1,800 pages of testimony and more than an hour of argument--ignoring the facts of the case. “(T)he parties submitted briefs of 86 pages each and a six-volume joint appendix of over 1,800 pages; plaintiffs’ reply brief was over thirty pages long," Cabranes wrote. "(O)ral argument, on December 10, 2007, lasted over an hour,” Cabranes explained, adding that more than two months after oral arguments, Sotomayor and the majority panel upheld the lower court in a summary order “containing a single substantive paragraph.” Cabranes criticized Sotomayor and the majority for not explaining why they had sided with the city in their new opinion. “This per curiam opinion adopted in toto the reasoning of the District Court, without further elaboration or substantive comment, and thereby converted a lengthy, unpublished district court opinion, grappling with significant constitutional and statutory claims of first impression, into the law of this Circuit,” Cabranes wrote in his dissent. Judge Cabranes also said that Sotomayor’s opinion failed to address the constitutional issues of the case, saying the majority had ignored the facts of the case as well. “It did so, moreover, in an opinion that lacks a clear statement of either the claims raised by the plaintiffs or the issues on appeal. Indeed, the opinion contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims at the core of this case,” the judge criticized. “This Court has failed to grapple with the questions of exceptional importance raised in this appeal,” Judge Cabranes concluded. “If the Ricci plaintiffs are to receive such an opinion from a reviewing court they must now look to the Supreme Court. Their claims are worthy of that review.” The opinion, or lack thereof, in the Ricci case is the last in a series of strange opinions issued by Sotomayor. In another recent decision, U.S.A. v. Marcus, Sotomayor sent the case of a convicted violent sex trafficker back to a lower court because a lower court judge had not specifically told the jury that some, though not all, of the sex trafficking had taken place before it was specifically outlawed. In another unusual case, then-district Judge Sotomayor ruled that a prospective lawyer must be given special consideration in taking the New York state bar exam because her dyslexia qualified as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, despite the fact that she had failed the exam five times. As a district court judge, Sotomayor also allowed a racial discrimination claim to continue when the plaintiff, a black nurse, sued Bellevue Hospital Corp because other nurses spoke mainly in Filipino, their native tongue, which she claimed made her feel harassed and isolated. In 1994, Judge Sotomayor ruled in favor of two prisoners who claimed to practice Santeria, a Caribbean religion that involves animal sacrifice and voodoo, saying that “distinctions between ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ religions” are “intolerable.” Sotomayor was originally nominated to the bench by former President George H.W. Bush on the recommendation of the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.). She was elevated to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bill Clinton in 1997. [/rquoter] http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=47838
I imagine this is one of those uneducated views that SF might be referring to. The only people to ever make this claim are conservatives unable to actually make valid arguments on the topic at hand.
