More change that's not change

President Obama will be announcing Sonia Sotomayor as his nomination to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor was a Clinton nominee to the Court of Appeals in 1997.

The Judicial Confirmation Network had some choice words about Obama's selection.

Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, on nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court:

“Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one’s sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.

“She reads racial preferences and quotas into the Constitution, even to the point of dishonoring those who preserve our public safety. On September 11, America saw firsthand the vital role of America’s firefighters in protecting our citizens. They put their lives on the line for her and the other citizens of New York and the nation. But Judge Sotomayor would sacrifice their claims to fair treatment in employment promotions to racial preferences and quotas. The Supreme Court is now reviewing that decision.
“She has an extremely high rate of her decisions being reversed, indicating that she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court.”

Keep in mind, the JCN is a Republican-based organization.

Sotomayor was originally nominated to the US District Court by Bush 41 as part of a deal to allow the confirmation of conservative judges. Race and gender cards were heavily played, with Patrick Leahy calling the delay of the nomination of a Hispanic woman disturbing, petty, and shameful. The live announcement should be happening any minute - I'm sure we'll hear talk of how proud we should be that she comes from immigrant parents and that we've once again broken racial barriers by nominating a Hispanic woman to the Supreme Court.

EDIT: Gabe reminds us that Sotomayor holds some beliefs about judicial activism that we might not share.  Yeah, she's that one.


Scotusblog has a list of some of her decisions, some not so bad, some disgusting, including an opinion that "the government “is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position” with public funds".

Gabe also dug up this damning analysis of one of her speeches, sponsored by the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal (no, I'm not kidding).  Is it racist to scream "RACIST!!!!!1!!eleventyone!"?  Go read it, it's scary.

Posted by: Alice H at 08:41 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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