Political Discussions
Obama choses Sotomayer for SCOTUS
Posted by satijournal • 5/26/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: obama, politics
She grew up in a Bronx housing project, went on to Princeton University and Yale Law School, and has stirred controversy by saying that judges' legal findings are informed by their own life experiences as well as their legal research.
Sotomayor was part of a three-judge panel that upheld New Haven, Conn.'s, decision to scuttle a promotions test for firefighters after the results showed no African Americans qualified for advancement. The white firefighters who would have been promoted said the decision violated federal law and their constitutional rights.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR2009052600889_2....
Obama may lose the support of some moderates with this selection.
User Comments
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It sounds like the rap is "activism"...
I don't see it
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor#Previous_rulings -
I don't like that ruling against the firemen or the baseball ruling back in the 90s. I admit, I haven't read the full rationales for the rulings, but I just don't like them. I'll have to read more on it this evening.
That said, she's one of the most qualified and brightest judges out there, and should make a good SCOTUS justice. The main thing is to have someone who will stand up to Roberts. Well, maybe not the main thing, but it's definitely a requirement.-
As for the "firemen case", it seemed like she didn't think that the White applicants had a reason to be in court... sadly Robertsesque
As for standing up to roberts, it sounds like she is being designated the SCOTUS equivelent of a "thug" in sports -
She'll make Roberts fold like a tortilla.
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lay down some street justice on his ayess?
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"Over the course of almost 17 years on the federal bench, Sotomayor has written opinions on at least eight cases that the Supreme Court later reviewed on appeal, according to a CNN analysis of Sotomayor's cases. Of those cases, six were either overturned or sent back to the lower court for further consideration. One case was upheld, but Sotomayor's legal reasoning was panned in the opinion signed by entire court. An eighth case is still being deliberated.
Sotomayor issued seven of the rulings while serving in her current post on the U.S. Court of Appeals; the eighth ruling stemmed from a case she presided over as a district court judge in 1997.
In three of the cases where Sotomayor was overturned, the newest Supreme Court nominee had the same or similar position as the jurist she hopes to replace, Justice David Souter."
politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/26/past-sotomayor-rulings-faced-tough...
Interesting.
Then I found this -
"The ghost of George H. W. Bush still continues in the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. He gave us Justice David Souter and he may have given us Sotomayor. No one ever expected President Barack Obama to nominate someone who respects the original intent of the Constitution," said Mathew Staver, chief of Liberty Counsel. "While Sotomayor is not the easiest nomination the president was considering in his short list, she is by far not the most risky either. She has had a mixed history on cases. Her personality
is not likely one that will persuade other justices to her point of view. Her nomination does not change the makeup of the United States Supreme Court."
So I ask you Agit8r, because I respect your opinion. Which is Sotomayor, activist or constitutionalist?-
well, i haven't looked too deeply into Sotomayors record. But by all appearances she is neither Hugo Black nor Salmon P. Chase, nor John Marshall.
I do find some issue with the terms activist and originalist. I don't know if there was such a thing as an originalist in the early days of our nation. As I point out in a recent blog, Jefferson was a bit hypocritical in his critique of the court, doing so when it suited his political purposes. Despite the "state rights" and "originalist" quotes, he was initially a mild anticonstitutionalist, being the primary impetus for a Bill of Rights, and grudgingly accepting the amended document though he did not believe it went far enough.
Madison was probably closer to an "originalist" per se.
the feuillant Hamilton did not believe in democracy and favored the broad sphere of judicial review that could curb its excesses.
For most of our history, the court has been ludicrously activist, particularly in defining modern corporate law. Our modern court--even the liberals--are fairly restrained by comparison. -
@Agit8r, any thoughts as to why he chose her instead of Cass Sunstein who thinks that FDR's "Second Bill of Rights" one of Roosevelt's greatest ideas? Sunstein and Obama attended University of Chicago Law School together and became friends. Sunstein is Obama's head of OIRA (Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs). And his propensity to admire so strongly, FDR's 2nd BOR would lead one to think that he would be a logical pick, considering how far left Obama has been governing.
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Over the course of almost 17 years on the federal bench, Sotomayor has written opinions on at least eight cases that the Supreme Court later reviewed on appeal, according to a CNN analysis of Sotomayor's cases. Of those cases, six were either overturned or sent back to the lower court for further consideration.
That's to be expected, since right-wing activist judges dominate the SCOTUS. If left-wingers or centrists were in the majority, the overturned cases probably would have been upheld instead.
In three of the cases where Sotomayor was overturned, the newest Supreme Court nominee had the same or similar position as the jurist she hopes to replace, Justice David Souter."
Souter is a centrist, so that means Sotomayer is a centrist. -
Apparently it's hard to pin her down, surprise, surprise: www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22982.html
It could be fun to watch the GOP try to oppose the nomination, especially since it will be only on appeals to its narrow base that distance it even more from mainstream voters.-
I'm sure obama would rather let a Democratic legislature legislate than a justice. A rather centrist pick gives Republicans another opportunity to hang themselves by obstructing.
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They're trying to say she's an affirmative action pick, which isn't going to work since she's extremely qualified. But she is somewhat of an activist judge. The ruling on the firefighters is not well reasoned. Here is the ruling:
In this case, the Civil Service Board found itself in the unfortunate position of having no good alternatives. We are not unsympathetic to the plaintiffs’ expression of rustration. Mr. Ricci, for example, who is dyslexic, made intensive efforts that appear to have resulted in his scoring highly on one of the exams, only to have it invalidated. But it simply does not follow that he has a viable Title VII claim. To the contrary, because the Board, in refusing to validate the exams, was simply trying to fulfill its obligations under Title VII when confronted with test results that had a disproportionate racial impact, its actions were protected.
www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/16b1aaec-a86d-4ba9-8b16-f8a86577aa...
New Haven refuses to release the actual test, indicating the test wasn't really biased. They just want to tailor the test so more blacks will achieve higher grades, which is horrible policy.
I've had managers who got promoted by affirmative action policies and it was extremely bad for morale and the projects suffered due to bad decisions made by those managers. You want the best and the brightest in the department making decisions about fires -- not some affirmative action hire. -
It could as easily be arguable that siding with the plaintiffs would be activist. I would have to dig deeper than I really care to do, to form a more definite opinion.
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No, that's activism. It's like two teams playing a game of baseball and at the end of the game, you don't like who won, so you decide to disqualify the winner for no other reason than you don't like the fact that they won (or that the other team lost).
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Can I just? ABout the firefighters in CT?
Now, I love firefighters to death - however there is a bubba system at play here, and you will be hard pressed to see any minority firefighters in most CT firehouses unless you have a city where minorities are the majority.
The tests that they have in place today - could not have been passed by prior chiefs and firefighters regardless of their race. I look at some of my own, well loved and respected firefighter family members, and I know that they could not, and would not pass the current tests.
And yet they were incredible firefighters.
I don't know the details of the ruling, but there is inherent racism in the firehouses (You should hear the language used), there are very few minorities, and the tests today are either harder to pass, or harder to bubba-system if you know what I mean.
Now that's the word from the inside, and you didn't hear it from me. -
If conservatives are scrutinizing this, they don't care about the particulars--the MORAL right and wrong achieved--but rather whether she followed the law. She upheld the decision of a public entity to revamp their qualification criteria... big whoop o_0
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I have no idea - or no informed opinion on whether this was good law or not because I don't actually know the particulars of the case. I just wanted to shed some light on the basic gist of what goes on, and what may have been an influence in the case.
I don't know that it was an influence, however. I just know how it is in reality. -
Having grown up in the NE, I know about the racism up there. It's as bad, if not worse than the south. But this is not the way to go about fixing the problem. If they want to start a special program to help blacks study for the test, that's one thing, but nullifying the results after the fact is bad policy and is going to result in resentment towards anyone who looks like he or she got promoted simply because they were a certain race.
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I don't know that the current tests are valid, anyway. WHich is more along the lines of the point or argument I was trying to make. Many of the old guard firefighters couldn't pass these tests, and many of the new firefighters can't pass the tests (regardless of race).
So where does that leave us? perhaps the need to revamp the tests?
Again, I'm not familiar with the ruling we're discussing so I reserve the right to withhold any opinion on it specifically, but would be willing to discuss possible societal reasons behind it. -
Interestingly, it is very hard to find any particulars, so we're stuck listening to the pundits argue that she should have sided with whitey or not. bleh
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Many of the old guard firefighters couldn't pass these tests, and many of the new firefighters can't pass the tests (regardless of race).
That's the it's supposed to be. If you made the test so easy that everyone could pass it, why bother testing? -
I agree - but you can't make the tests so hard that you wind up limiting your access to good firefighters, either. If the tests before (years and years ago) turned out the firefighters I know and love today - then I would say those tests are plenty good enough. they are and were damn good at their jobs and didn't need to pass the current battery of tests to accomplish all that they have accomplished.
I couldn't imagine what many of the departments here would look like now if the firefighters who are now retired never made it into the firehouse because they couldn't do calculus (or whatever). The numbers are already dwindling. -
as long as they look good on a calendar, right
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Most of them would have to put their helmets on, and pull down the face shield, though.
Muwahahahahaha
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Another bad decision by Sotomayer was the Baseball strike. Had a salary cap been implemented, that would have been the best thing to happen to baseball. Now it's all about the money. Alex Rodriguez recently signed a $275,000,000 contract. That's crazy money. It makes the owners with the most money the most likely to have a top team and teams like the Rockies maintain a state of perpetual suckiness. And ticket prices continue to rise.
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so much for egalitarianism. lol
Again, it doesn't sound very activist to me -
Sure that's activism. If the government didn't intervene, the players would have eventually given in and baseball would be a lot better off today.
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Well... it doesn't fit the Republican definition of "activist" which is interpreting the law in favor of social justice
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Politicians appointing judges. It is wrong.-
The head of state appoints the judges, and the Senate confirms the appointments. There's this thing called the Constitution. We don't have a monarch or House of Lords.
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I agree with you poly, I think we should have a lottery to pick judges, no wait! We could draw straws! Flip a coin? Paper, rock, scissors?
*starts chanting, "my mother told me to pick the very best..." -
It goes both ways. So long as there is some reasonable amount of turnover in the executive branch (which our current court suggest has not occurred) There will be some balance of ideas/representation.
Representation good -
Judges in the UK are chosen by an independant body The Judicial Appointments Commission www.judicialappointments.gov.uk/
Every time a judge is appointed in the US there is the same old debate about what they eat for breakfast blah blah blah. Depending on which Party appointed them the other side criticises the appointment.
The irony is Judges appointed to the supreme court generally just get on with the law despite the political hyperbole created by their perceived political appointment.
But how can one expect respect for the law when every Judicial appointment is greeted by the assumption that they are there, not to carry out the law impartially, but to reflect the incumbent administrations political views.
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Every time I see SCOTUS, I automatically think, "Scouts?"-
wow... your mind is cleaner than mine is
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HAAAAA!!! -
*still flipping a coin*
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my SCOTUS is sweaty...
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Oh, I see. Scrotus.
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sotomayer is a racist bigot.-
Thanks for taking the time to offer your far-right viewpoint. -
its not far-right its fact you idiot
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It's fact to narrow-minded dittoheads perhaps.
Come on... we all know you're a soldier in Rush Limbaugh's army. -
Okay I won't call any names here, but Sotomayor DID make a very racist comment when she said, "I would hope a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
First of all, had a white male made the reverse comment, he would be practically run out of Washington DC, much less confirmed for an appointment to the Supreme Court.
Second of all, taking her at her words, that comment shows a great deal about how she thinks a judge should conduct him/herself. In the Code of Judicial Conduct for United States Judges, Canon 2, Section B it says:
"A judge should not allow family, social, or other relationships to influence judicial conduct or judgment. A judge should not lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance the private interests of others; nor convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge."
www.uscourts.gov/guide/vol2/ch1.cfm
This clearly flies in the face of not only Sotomayor's statements, but also Obama's when he was looking for a judge that would be "more empathetic."
So yes, I and many others on both sides of the aisle think Sotomayor is bigoted and will not interpret the Constitution properly.
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and we know your a liberal facist
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So judging people based on their race isn't racist? what are you a fool?
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Not capable of understanding "taken out of context" or "quote does not properly reflect true intent of message"?
Do we have to dig up all the bigoted statements made by your leader Rush Limbaugh again?! -
Do we have to dig up all the bigoted statements of your leader karl marx?
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Rush isn't being appointed to the United States Supreme Court. He is an entertainer. You know, like Olberman, only much, much better.
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I find it funny that you say "taken out of context" because thats all you did with Rush. I found nothing out of context with Sotomayer's statements. It just sounded plain racist. Why are you even bringing up Rush in this? Sotomayer has much more at stake.
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the white male judges didn't show themselves to be very enlightened during the Redding v. Safford opening arguments
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Well... Rush still seems to be one of the only people sticking by the "racist" label, but he NOW claims he may support the nomination. Newt withdrew his "racist' labeling.
Gingrich: I shouldn't have called Sotomayor 'racist'
politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/03/gingrich-i-shouldnt-have-called-so...
Why Gingrich withdrew 'racist' label
www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/03/borger.newt.gingrich/index.html
Limbaugh ready to support Sotomayor?
politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/04/limbaugh-ready-to-support-sotomayo...
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Ahhhh, judicial activism, taste great - less filling.
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