Sonia Sotomayor was widely considered a front runner for replacing retiring Justice David Souter. She's a New Yorker, and is on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
And now, she's going to be nominated to be on the US Supreme Court. Sotomayor fits the kind of approach that President Obama seeks - a liberal interpretation of the US Constitution where the Constitution is a living breathing document. The case against her is pretty persuasive, but there is nothing that the GOP can do to derail this nomination.
The only way this nomination gets derailed is if the Obama Administration didn't pick up on details that will embarrass and suggest that Sotomayor is an inappropriate candidate for the Supreme Court. That's not all that far fetched given the way that the Obama Administration has repeatedly botched nominations for a host of positions, repeatedly selecting tax cheats and those with ethical flaps.
Still, even a tax problem would not likely derail matters as the Democrats have control of the Senate, and Sotomayor is a qualified jurist albeit one that I would not agree with. As I've previously pointed out, Obama's replacement of Souter would not change the ideological makeup of the bench, as Sotomayor would replace a liberal justice in Souter. It would take a shakeup among the conservative members of the court to have a fundamental shift on the bench.
It will be interesting to see how the confirmation procedure progresses and whether any skeletons are revealed.
UPDATE:
Stop the ACLU has video of Sotomayor ruminating on the role of judges on the bench.
She's an activist judge, but this isn't going to derail her confirmation. It should, however, be a rallying call for the GOP to realize that they've got to come up with a way to start winning back seats lost in Congress so that they can thwart future nominations and block Obama's domestic policy agenda.
UPDATE:
She ruled against a high school student's right to free speech based on statements made off school grounds - claiming that it was acceptable for the school to limit speech based on proper respect for authority. That's a bad decision, and undermines the right to free speech.
Other decisions of interest include upholding warrantless searches for ferry users to thwart terrorism.
Her reasoning on a major intellectual property case involving the New York Times was reversed. In 1997, she ruled that newspaper publishers did not violated copyright law by transferring the work of freelance authors to electronic databases (972 F. Supp. 804 (1997)). The Second Circuit later reversed her decision, and the US Supreme Court upheld the Second Circuit in a 7-2 decision against Sotomayor's position (Stevens and Breyer dissenting). (Tasini vs. New York Times, 533 U.S. 483 (2001).) Ginsberg wrote the majority decision.
That particular case was argued by two of the top IP lawyers in the nation:
Laurence H. Tribe (Argued the cause for the petitioners) and Laurence E. Gold (Argued the cause for the respondents).
Additional cases can be found here.
UPDATE:
Ilya Somin isn't impressed with Sotomayor, primarily because she hasn't developed an area of law in the way that other potential nominees were at the forefront of law such as Diane Wood and Elena Kagan. She's got the qualifications, as she's been on the Second Circuit for a decade, but it's not up to the same level of jurisprudence as Roberts, Alito, or even Ginsberg.
UPDATE:
Much is being made of the fact that this would be a historic pick. Nonsense. Every pick is historic. That's the role of the Supreme Court. What exactly is Sotomayor bringing to the table in terms of jurisprudence? Some are claiming that she's the first Hispanic on the Court, but that's not exactly true. Benjamin Cardozo was Hispanic (but the key demographic/ethnic classification for him was that he was the first Jewish member on the Supreme Court). She wouldn't be the first woman on the Court, but would be the first Hispanic woman. Frankly, the demographics/ethnic games on the Bench are troubling - and should be troubling to anyone who wants to make sure that the best qualified jurists are on the high court.
Her merits should be decided based on how she's ruled, and not that she considers herself a Newyorrican (a mashup of New York and Puerto Rican). Of course, even President Obama voted against a qualified jurist when he cast his vote against Sam Alito. He just wants the right kind of jurist on the bench. That's his right as President. It doesn't mean that the GOP has to play nice. Aggressive questioning should be the name of the game, just as the Democrats did to President Bush's nominees.
UPDATE:
Don Surber notes a rumor that Sotomayor doesn't have backing of nine Democrats in the Senate, and that this is likely to result in a second name being proffered. Until I see more specific reporting on this, I would discount such rumor mongering.
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