Obama Picks Sotomayer for Supreme Court

[Ben]

I know nothing about her. I'm not sure "she saved baseball" is that ringing of an endorsement as a claim to judicial fame. 

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090526/pl_nm/us_usa_court_nominee_11


Obama picks Sotomayor for Supreme Court
By David Alexander David Alexander 17 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama nominated Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, selecting a woman who would be the court's first Latino to replace retiring Justice David Souter.

Obama's choice of the liberal Sotomayor, a 54-year-old judge on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, was unlikely to change the ideological balance of the high court because Souter, 69, was part of the panel's liberal wing.

The court, which decides controversial cases on abortion and the death penalty, has been closely divided on many contentious issues, with a five-member conservative majority and four dissenting liberal justices. Sotomayor was expected to be a reliable liberal vote.

Conservatives quickly moved to criticize the choice, but political analysts said that, barring an unexpected scandal, there was little chance the nomination could be derailed. Supreme Court justices serve for life but their nomination must be approved by the U.S. Senate, where Obama's fellow Democrats have a majority.

"I have decided to nominate an inspiring woman who I believe will make a great justice, Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the great state of New York," Obama said in a White House event announcing his decision.

Sotomayor, a child of Puerto Rican parents, is most widely known for her decision as a trial judge in 1995 to bar Major League Baseball from using replacement players, ending a nearly year-long strike.

"Some say that Judge Sotomayor saved baseball," Obama told the White House crowd.

Based on her rulings as a trial judge and then a U.S. appeals court judge in New York, Sotomayor's views would in many respects be similar those of outgoing Justice Souter.

As an appeals court judge, she has often sided with plaintiffs in cases involving race, sex, age and disability discrimination and has ruled against businesses in cases on environmental law and securities litigation. The two business rulings were later reversed by the Supreme Court.

Hoping to show a consultative approach, Obama had been meeting with key Democratic and Republican members of the Senate as he weighed a short list of mostly women to replace Souter.

Obama interviewed Sotomayor on Thursday at the White House and called her on Monday to ask her to take the Supreme Court position, a White House official said on condition of anonymity.

[AZRedhawk44]

Sotomayor, a child of Puerto Rican parents, is most widely known for her decision as a trial judge in 1995 to bar Major League Baseball from using replacement players, ending a nearly year-long strike.

Ah, a Union supporter.  Whodathunkit?

[BryanP]

Here's a much longer article about her:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30938978/

Mini-bio excerpted:

Sonia Sotomayor biography
Name: Sonia Sotomayor

Age-Birthdate-Location: 54; June 25, 1954; New York, N.Y.

Experience: Judge, U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 1998-present;
judge, U. S. District Court Southern District of New York, 1992-1998; private practice,
New York City, 1984-1992; assistant district attorney, New York County, 1979-1984

Education: B.A., Princeton University, 1976; J.D., Yale Law School, 1979.

Quote: "I don't believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says
what it says. We should do honor to it." — during a 1997 nomination hearing.

I like the quote at the end. 

[HankB]

Was she the one who was filmed while joking about "making policy" from the bench?

[T.O.M.]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/05/26/us/0526-scotus.html

IN this article, she states that 2A is a restriction on federal laws infringing on RKBA.  This is a fascinating position to take, as it (1) would seem to make her a vote against a federal AWB, and (2) may be something of a point of discussion for her in terms o fthe 14th Amendment applicability to the states.  For if 1A, 4A, and 5A are all applicable to states under 14A, then should not 2A also be applicable to the states?

What impresses me about her is that, despite my disagreement with her on RKBA, her reasoning (at least on the surface) has less to do with firearms as an issue, but upon constitutional interpretation.

[longeyes]

If you're looking for her to save RKBA the way she saved baseball, you may be disappointed.  Take a look at the Ricci case, now under review by SCOTUS; that will give you a better sense of how she sees the world and what it may mean for America.

[MicroBalrog]

“The Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right.”


...wha?

[coppertales]

Remember....she is a dimokrat, being appointed by a dimokrat.  What is the first thing out of the mouth of a dimokrat.......a lie......chris3

[Standing Wolf]

This just in from: http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/

From The Soprano State: New Jersey’s Culture of Corruption, by  Bob Ingle and Sandy McClure, p. 213:

    “[Former Chief of Staff to New Jersey Governor James Florio Joseph C.] Salema could have spent up to 10 years behind bars for steering government bond business to First Fidelity in exchange for payments in a scheme that netted him hundreds of thousands of dollars,” the Trentonian reported. U.S. District Judge Sonia Sotomayor instead sentenced him to six months in a halfway house and six months of home detention, fined him $10,000 and gave him 1400 hours of community service.

A $10,000 fine to someone who pleads guilty to a federal charge of sharing in more than $200,000 in kickbacks. Boy, that will teach him!

[T.O.M.]

If you're looking for her to save RKBA the way she saved baseball, you may be disappointed.  Take a look at the Ricci case, now under review by SCOTUS; that will give you a better sense of how she sees the world and what it may mean for America.

Don't get me wrong.  I don't count on her, or any judge, to rule a particular way.  One of the key points I learned in law school...there are three kinds of law:
1.  The law in the books
2.  The law that the professor tells you about
3.  The law of the judge in whose courtroom you are appearing

What I thought was interesting, and unique, was the position that 2A does prohibit restrictions on RKBA.  Even if she's arguing that it prohibits only federal restrictions, in so doing she's at the same time recognizing that 2A does prohibit governmental restrictions.  What I am curious to see is how she reconciles that position with 14A, and the manner in which previous courts have used 14A to extend the other rights of the Bill of RIghts to states, despite being a federal document.

Then again, it could just end up like my Con Law professor in law school..."2A means states can have a national guard.  Why?  because that's what it says.  end of discussion."

[Monkeyleg]

Well, she fills the female and minority requirements. She's also unmarried (divorced in '83), so she just might fill the gay/lesbian quota as well.

[Nitrogen]

What I thought was interesting, and unique, was the position that 2A does prohibit restrictions on RKBA.  Even if she's arguing that it prohibits only federal restrictions, in so doing she's at the same time recognizing that 2A does prohibit governmental restrictions.

Until the second amendment is incorporated, she's exactly right.

[deleted because it's lame --Nitrogen]

So far she seems, at worst, not a follower of the collective rights theory on the second, and at best, she might even be a supporter.

Hopefully as people dig into her previous cases, this pans out.

[T.O.M.]

Or she'll cave to the "popular" position espoused by those on the confirmation committee, which includes the Hononrable Dinae Feinstein and the Honorable Cuarles Schumer, just to give some sense of the way the cards are stacked. 

[mejeepnut]

I think this says it all-

“I would hope that 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,” said Judge Sotomayor
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15judge.html

[roo_ster]

Well, she fills the female and minority requirements. She's also unmarried (divorced in '83), so she just might fill the gay/lesbian quota as well.

That would make eligible to also be the Poet Laureate of the USA or any other western country.

[longeyes]

I don't know about the rest of you, but frankly I am tired of hearing how someone else's life experience is "richer" and more "diverse" than my own because I happen to have been born white and male.  This is unadulterated racism and sexism and, in the mouth of anyone else would be rightfully mocked and derided for the foolishness it contains.

[T.O.M.]

I think this says it all-

“I would hope that 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,” said Judge Sotomayor
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15judge.html

Please disregard my earlier posts.  I no longer am interested in her or her philosophies, as I am sure she would not be interested in mine as a "white male who hasn't lived that life."

[Nitrogen]

I think this says it all-

“I would hope that 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,” said Judge Sotomayor
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15judge.html

Screw that noise.

[makattak]

I don't know about the rest of you, but frankly I am tired of hearing how someone else's life experience is "richer" and more "diverse" than my own because I happen to have been born white and male.  This is unadulterated racism and sexism and, in the mouth of anyone else would be rightfully mocked and derided for the foolishness it contains.

Hmm...

This is really very funny to me. In another thread, a liberal columnist is talking about how we need to force people who are "fortunate" (lucky) "through accident of birth" to share with others not so lucky.

Why is this woman getting special treatment "through accident of birth"?

Why should she get nominated to the Supreme Court simply because of the accident of her birth?!

Shouldn't we give the position to some poor white man who is now suffering a lack of perspective because she got lucky in the "lottery of life"?

[charby]

I don't know about the rest of you, but frankly I am tired of hearing how someone else's life experience is "richer" and more "diverse" than my own because I happen to have been born white and male.  This is unadulterated racism and sexism and, in the mouth of anyone else would be rightfully mocked and derided for the foolishness it contains.

I can buy that.

Maybe I lived a richer life. I grew up in a small Iowa city along the Mississippi River. I lived with both of my parents in a green 3 bedroom colonial style house not far from lots of woods where I played as a kid. I learned outdoor skills in the Boy Scouts, I learned discipline in the Civil Air Patrol and I spent most Sunday mornings at St John the Baptist Church. My parents liked to do activities as a family and my parents and my friends parents also like to be involved in the goings on of my friends and I. I learned to respect the outdoors by my father taking my fishing and hunting as soon as I was mature enough to do.

Etc, etc.

[Scout26]

I can buy that.

Maybe I lived a richer life. I grew up in a small Iowa city along the Mississippi River. I lived with both of my parents in a green 3 bedroom colonial style house not far from lots of woods where I played as a kid. I learned outdoor skills in the Boy Scouts, I learned discipline in the Civil Air Patrol and I spent most Sunday mornings at St John the Baptist Church. My parents liked to do activities as a family and my parents and my friends parents also like to be involved in the goings on of my friends and I. I learned to respect the outdoors by my father taking my fishing and hunting as soon as I was mature enough to do.

Etc, etc.

[liberal sneer]  Sorry, none of that counts as "life experience" unless you were discriminated against or otherwise repressed.  [/liberal sneer]

[Sergeant Bob]

Was she the one who was filmed while joking about "making policy" from the bench?

Yep, she's the one. She is nothing but a racist, leftist, lying gold digger.

[charby]

[liberal sneer]  Sorry, none of that counts as "life experience" unless you were discriminated against or otherwise repressed.  [/liberal sneer]

My parents refused to buy me "Guess" or "Z Cavaricci" jeans in High School. So I was oppressed because I wasn't able to be fashion conscious in High School.

[mtnbkr]

My parents refused to buy me "Guess" or "Z Cavaricci" jeans in High School. So I was oppressed because I wasn't able to be fashion conscious in High School.

I thought Guess (umm, 180lbs?) jeans were for girls only.  No clue what Z Cavaricci is.  What sort of yuppie paradise did you come from?

Chris

[charby]

I thought Guess (umm, 180lbs?) jeans were for girls only.  No clue what Z Cavaricci is.  What sort of yuppie paradise did you come from?

Chris

They had them for dudes too, both brands were sold at the mall in a store called "The Brass Buckle". What sort of yuppie paradise I grew up in? Burlington, IA an industrial river town, kind of like a steel town but much cleaner.