Sotomayor is Obama's SCOTUS pick

[JoeTheJuggler]

Obama has nominated federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/26/supreme.court/index.html

Her resume.

My first impression: this is no Harriet Miers pick!

 

[pgwenthold]

Then again, she is going to face strong opposition by the Major League Baseball owners.

 

[webfusion]

She faced opposition from Republicans when she was nominated to the District Court, as they were concerned she might end up on the Supreme Court... and they now end up being absolutely correct.

 

[Beerina]

• Sided with environmentalists in a 2007 case that would have allowed the EPA to consider the cost-effectiveness of protecting fish and aquatic life in rivers and lakes located near power plants. Was overturned by the Supreme Court.
• Supported the right to sue national investment firms in state court, rather than in federal court. Was overturned unanimously by the Supreme Court.
• Ruled that a federal law allowing lawsuits against individual federal government officers and agents for constitutional rights violations also extends to private corporations working on behalf of the federal government. Was overturned by the Supreme Court.

• Wrote the 2008 opinion supporting the City of New Haven's decision to throw out the results of a firefighter promotion exam because almost no minorities qualified for promotions. The Supreme Court heard the case in April 2009 and a final opinion is pending.

Any predictions? IIRC, the city wrote a neutral test, or what it believed was one, but lo!, saw it didn't pass very many minorities, and threw it out. Of course, non-minorities who passed then sued for reverse racism, and it's now in the oh-what-a-tangled-web-we-weaved final stages...




In any case, don't start applauding too hard, yet:

• Sotomayor was first appointed to the federal bench in 1991 by a Republican President, George "I appointed Souter, remember!" Bush.

 

[Brainster]

I am not terribly pleased with this quote:

"Our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor [Martha] Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." [U.C. Berkeley School of Law, 10/26/2001]

That sounds suspiciously like she's not rigorously applying the law to the case at hand, but using the "richness" of her life experience.

 

[ravdin]

Wrote the 2008 opinion supporting the City of New Haven's decision to throw out the results of a firefighter promotion exam because almost no minorities qualified for promotions. The Supreme Court heard the case in April 2009 and a final opinion is pending.

She didn't write the original opinion. A three judge panel, which she was on, upheld the ruling made by a lower court in favor of New Haven. The panel's ruling was unsigned, so it's not clear who really wrote it.

I'm sure a lot more will come up over the next couple of weeks, so I'm willing to wait and see what happens. I'm not ready to discount her yet based on one fishy decision and one quote made at UC Berkeley in 2001 (I refer to the ridiculous notion that as a Latina, she would more often than not make a better legal decision than a white male).

 

[Cleon]

We should start a betting pool on how many times we'll hear the phrase "activist judge" over the next couple of weeks.

(I would suggest a drinking contest, but I don't want to be responsible for half the forum dying of alcohol poisoning.)

 

[Tricky]

We should start a betting pool on how many times we'll hear the phrase "activist judge" over the next couple of weeks.

(I would suggest a drinking contest, but I don't want to be responsible for half the forum dying of alcohol poisoning.)

No bets.

"Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written," said Wendy Long, counsel to the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network."

 

[NoZed Avenger]

Off the top of my head (and going by memory). I know little about her apart from a few decisions and a couple of quoted speeches. The statements made at a few public appearances are troubling.

Beats Harriet Myers in the qualifications department, but no one else in recent memory. Sufficiently qualified by experience, but I would have prefered a bit beefier resume. The other two people mentioned as under consideration -- Diane Wood, Elena Kagan -- would have similar judicial leanings, but appear to be better qualified and have less strong beliefs about making policy from the bench.

I do know Sotomayor was one of the panel that heard and issued an unsigned opinion in Didden on the 5th Amendment Takings clause (Didden v Port Chester) after the big brou-ha ha on Kelo that was horribly expansive at the expense of property rights. Bad, bad decision. Don't know enough yet to make a reasoned decision.

 

[boloboffin]

And, funnily enough, "Obama's Harriet Miers" seems to have been the ready rhetorical salvo for any woman he appointed.

 

[ravdin]

And, funnily enough, "Obama's Harriet Miers" seems to have been the ready rhetorical salvo for any woman he appointed.

Whatever else one might say of Sotomayor, no one disputes that she's an experienced federal judge. She's not an Obama crony being rewarded with a Supreme Court nomination in exchange for her loyal service. I fail to see how a comparison to Harriet Miers can stand up to the tiniest amount of scrutiny.

 

[NoZed Avenger]

Yep. Before "Beats Harriet Meyers" in my earlier post about experience, place "Easily, easily . . ."

 

[Brainster]

Whatever else one might say of Sotomayor, no one disputes that she's an experienced federal judge. She's not an Obama crony being rewarded with a Supreme Court nomination in exchange for her loyal service. I fail to see how a comparison to Harriet Miers can stand up to the tiniest amount of scrutiny.

Miers takes a little too much criticism, and of course conservatives didn't back her up because they were suspicious of her ties to Democrats back in the 1980s, but let's remember, she was the co-managing partner of a law firm with 400 attorneys, the head of the State Bar of Texas, and appeared on several "most influential lawyers in America" lists from 1997-2000. As far as I can see, her main disqualifications are that she knew the president for a long time, and that she was not from an Ivy League school. I'm not saying that she was ridiculously qualified like John Roberts, but she was certainly not ridiculously unqualified either.

 

[Cleon]

Miers takes a little too much criticism, and of course conservatives didn't back her up because they were suspicious of her ties to Democrats back in the 1980s, but let's remember, she was the co-managing partner of a law firm with 400 attorneys, the head of the State Bar of Texas, and appeared on several "most influential lawyers in America" lists from 1997-2000. As far as I can see, her main disqualifications are that she knew the president for a long time, and that she was not from an Ivy League school. I'm not saying that she was ridiculously qualified like John Roberts, but she was certainly not ridiculously unqualified either.

For a federal judgeship, maybe. Perhaps even for an appellate judge. But for SCOTUS? Yeah, she was ridiculously unqualified for that. I would think that, before being a judge in the highest court in the land, some judicial experience would be required.

She didn't just "know the president for a long time," and it's dishonest for you to summarize it like that. She was a close personal friend and employee of his administration as governor and as president. Putting her on the Supreme Court would effectively mean that Bush had his own private go-to gal on the Supreme Court. Some of us are rather fond of the idea of an independent judiciary.

 

[Praktik]

I am not terribly pleased with this quote:

That sounds suspiciously like she's not rigorously applying the law to the case at hand, but using the "richness" of her life experience.

I dont see what's all that troubling about these remarks. We'd like to think that judging takes place in a vacuum and that its all a very impersonal, objective assessing of facts and arguments, but just as there is no such thing as objectivity in the newsroom, there is no such thing on the bench.

Every judge - consciously or unconsciously - will be biased by their particular and personal history. After all, its what made them who they are today.

This quote is fodder for the punditry game but not much else.

 

[linusrichard]

Off the top of my head (and going by memory). I know little about her apart from a few decisions and a couple of quoted speeches. The statements made at a few public appearances are troubling.

Beats Harriet Myers in the qualifications department, but no one else in recent memory. Sufficiently qualified by experience, but I would have prefered a bit beefier resume. The other two people mentioned as under consideration -- Diane Wood, Elena Kagan -- would have similar judicial leanings, but appear to be better qualified and have less strong beliefs about making policy from the bench.

So Clarence Thomas isn't "in recent memory" then? I also don't necessarily agree that Dean Kagan is "better qualified" than Judge Sotomayor - she has a "beefier resume," I think, but she has never been a judge. So really, it depends on what you look at, I think. I wouldn't say either one is definitively "better qualified" than the other.

As far as time on the federal bench goes, I believe Sotomayor has as much or more than any nominee in recent memory. Not that experience on the federal bench is everything, but it's something to look at.

For reference:

Judge Sotomayor:
ADA for New York County.
7 yrs. at Pavia & Harcourt.
6 yrs. Judge for S.D.N.Y.
10 yrs. Judge on the Second Circuit.

Judge Wood:
Clerk for Judge Goldberg of the Fifth Circuit.
Clerk for Justice Blackmun.
1 yr. at Office of the Legal Adviser for State Dept.
1 yr. prof. at Georgetown Law.
14 yrs. prof. at U. of Chicago Law.
13 yrs. Judge on the Seventh Circuit.

Dean Kagan:
Law clerk for Judge Abner Mikva of the D.C. Circuit.
Law clerk for Justice Marshall.
2 yrs. at Williams & Connolly.
4 yrs. as law prof. at University of Chicago Law.
Assoc. White House Counsel
Deputy Asst. to the Pres. for Domestic Policy
Deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council
4 yrs. as law prof. at Harvard Law.
6 yrs. Dean of Harvard Law.
Solicitor General

Harriet Miers:
Law clerk for Judge Estes of N.D. Tex.
29 yrs. at Locke, Liddell, and Sapp.
General Counsel for Tex. Gov. G.W. Bush's transition team.
Personal lawyer for Bush.
Asst. to the Pres. and Staff Secretary.
Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy
White House Counsel

Justice Thomas:
Asst. AG of Missouri
Atty. for Monsanto
Legislative asst. for Sen. John Danforth
1 yr. at the Dept. of Education
8 yrs. Chair of the EEOC.
2 yrs. Judge on the D.C. Circuit

 

[ravdin]

Miers takes a little too much criticism, and of course conservatives didn't back her up because they were suspicious of her ties to Democrats back in the 1980s, but let's remember, she was the co-managing partner of a law firm with 400 attorneys, the head of the State Bar of Texas, and appeared on several "most influential lawyers in America" lists from 1997-2000. As far as I can see, her main disqualifications are that she knew the president for a long time, and that she was not from an Ivy League school. I'm not saying that she was ridiculously qualified like John Roberts, but she was certainly not ridiculously unqualified either.

Conservatives didn't back Miers because of her lack of qualifications, not because she made a few donations to Democratic politicians in the 80s. She may be a capable manager, but she fell far short on concepts of constitutional law when questioned by senators. I saw it as the Senate (then majority Republican) sending a message to Bush that they would not be a rubber stamp for his political appointees.

 

[Ziggurat]

I do know Sotomayor was one of the panel that heard and issued an unsigned opinion in Didden on the 5th Amendment Takings clause (Didden v Port Chester) after the big brou-ha ha on Kelo that was horribly expansive at the expense of property rights. Bad, bad decision.

A number of her public statements rub me the wrong way, but this case is so far the most troubling to me.

 

[Brainster]

For a federal judgeship, maybe. Perhaps even for an appellate judge. But for SCOTUS? Yeah, she was ridiculously unqualified for that. I would think that, before being a judge in the highest court in the land, some judicial experience would be required.

Earl Warren. No judicial experience before being elevated to Chief Justice.

 

[Cleon]

Earl Warren. No judicial experience before being elevated to Chief Justice.

Warren had, at least, considerable experience as a county district attorney and state Attorney General. He had considerable knowledge of case law and judicial practice.

Miers, otoh, was a policy wonk and staff counsel for George W. Bush, who, when questioned, gave the impression to congresscritters on both sides of the aisle that she was completely uninformed about the basics of constitutional law. She had little (if any) courtroom experience, and her role at the "law firm of 400 attorneys" was basically that of a manager.

So I don't think the two are really comparable.