E. J. Dionne: Sotomayor Is no Leftist

[babylonsister]

Sotomayor Is no Leftist
Posted on May 28, 2009
By E.J. Dionne



Republicans would be foolish to fight the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court because she is the most conservative choice that President Obama could have made.

And even though they should support her confirmation, liberals would be foolish to embrace Sotomayor as one of their own because her record is clearly that of a moderate. It is highly unlikely that she will push the court to the left. Indeed, on many issues of concern to business, she is likely to make the Chamber of Commerce perfectly happy.

In this battle, it’s important to separate Obama’s reasons for choosing Sotomayor from her actual record. He was drawn to her not simply because the politics of naming the first Latina justice were irresistible, but also because he saw her as the precise opposite of Chief Justice John Roberts.

In his September 2005 speech explaining his vote against Roberts, Obama argued that 95 percent of court cases are easily settled on the basis of the law and precedent. But in “those 5 percent of hard cases,” Obama said, the “legal process alone will not lead you to a rule of decision” and “the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge’s heart.”

And that is where Obama found Roberts wanting. The young senator insisted that Roberts “far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak” and “seemed to have consistently sided with those who were dismissive of efforts to eradicate the remnants of racial discrimination in our political process.”

Obama believes Roberts’ subsequent behavior on the court has justified his initial suspicions. He hopes that Sotomayor will be the anti-Roberts, a person whose experience growing up in the projects of the South Bronx will allow her to see life and the quest for justice in a way Roberts never will.

more...

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090528_sotomayor_is_no_leftist/

[wyldwolf]

1. E.J. Dionne should know and I agree

Whereas she is most likely liberal on a lot of social issues, she is also likely to be centrist - conservative on others based on her religious upbringing.

I admittedly don't know a lot of Hispanic women (a total of 6) - but those I do know are quite conservative on many issues.

[calico1]

12. A lot of us really aren't.

And many of us don't go to church anymore except for weddings and funerals.

[mucifer]

2. clarence thomas had a different life experience, too... just sayin.

[marshall]

3. I think Obama feels compelled to remplace a moderate with a moderate

Souter was a Bush41 appointee--a disappointment to conservatives but he has been a moderate. Tradition dictates that Obama choose his replacement in kind.

When Ginsburg or Stevens retires I expect Obama to go balls out and choose a bonafide liberal.

[Sebastian Doyle]

5. So if Fat Tony Scalia dies or (however unlikely) retires during Obama's term

You would be completely fine with him picking another far right, literal son of a fascist, Opus Dei bastard to replace him?

For that matter, Stevens was a moderate Republican at the time Ford picked him. It's just that his party (and the DLC/BlueBalls) have gone far to the right of him in the last three decades.

[vaberella]

9. I don't agree. I think O chose her because of her qualifications not political leaning.

Her political leaning is what is being memed about by so many people. And I think unfairly and incorrectly.

[asphalt.jungle]

13. Clarence Thomas replaced Thurgood Marshall.

if there was a tradition it died that day.

[wildflower]

4. More from the article:

She also upheld a ban on federal funds going to family planning groups that provided abortions overseas. Sotomayor wrote that “the Supreme Court has made clear that the government is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position, and can do so with public funds.”

Dan Gilgoff, on his excellent “God and Country” blog, points out that Sotomayor also ruled in favor of a group of Connecticut anti-abortion protesters who asserted that police “used excessive force against them at a demonstration.” He concludes that her “thin record on abortion is most likely a relief” to pro-life groups. In picking her, Obama sent another signal that he is serious in seeking common ground on abortion.

I'm worried about this and hope we find out more about her views during the confirmation process.

[vaberella]

10. Not to defend her, considering I agree we need to learn more about her.

However, we also have to realize that there is the issue of "burden of proof" if the burden of proof is not met by plaintiff, defendant, or prosecutor then they will fail in the end. In this case we need to actually know more about the case itself before we should worry about her decision making. We might actually agree with her ruling after reading the case and the arguments presented. A blurb of 4-5 sentences is not enough to know everything for sure.

[asphalt.jungle]

14. i like that she used anti-abortion instead of pro-life

pro-life is code among that crowd.

and what's wrong with this ruling? "the Supreme Court has made clear that the government is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position, and can do so with public funds."

i find that perfectly acceptable.

[HopeOverFear]

6. ..and Roberts said "I'll get you back by fucking up your oath of Office" LOL

[Adelante]

7. I think she'll go on a case by case basis

She's never been strongly political and trying to put her in an ideological box probably will prove futile. I don't think this makes her a centrist. I expect her decisions to move along the ideological spectrum depending on what's in front of her. She won't make purists of any stripe happy, that's a given.

[vaberella]

8. As I stated on another thread: She makes the best decision on what she is given.

She could swing left or right and that's the end of it. O hired her because of her job qualifications and not her political leaning. Everyone else wants her to be hired based on a political ideology and not her qualifications.

[cascadiance]

11. My big issue is how she would handle cases based on the "rights" of corporate personhood...

If she's fair on many other issues and follows the law, and uses her heart that sounds good from what I hear to decide those that have question marks, she's good with me.

But I don't consider taking down "corporate personhood" an ideologically pure "left" position. I see it as restoring the constitution, and also tearing down the mess following this "court clerk activist" decision has wrought on us. If that's considered an "ideological stance" for her to be inclined to strike down this notion, then classify me as wanting an "ideological choice". However, I don't consider it as such, much as the corporate media in their defense of this POS "ruling" to keep their power might try to classify it as an "ideological" criteria...

Even former chief justice Rehnquist at times took a position against this unconstitutional notion, which is why I think the court has shifted more on this issue to the wrong side than it has on other critical issues like women's choice rights, etc.

[vaberella]

15. If we're looking at it in terms of the law.

I think she'll be looking at who provides the best defense, or meets the burden of proof. Unfortunately,if it's a corporate entity, then it's them. If they fail then she will side with the people. She's shown this before in her previous cases by siding with the players for a sports case while siding with the corporate entity in another. I mean she will hold the court responsible in who meets that one objective.

If that's the case, then she will be following the rule of law and deciding on merit rather than on her need to be a proponent for anti-corporate beliefs, if she's anti-corporation. I think we'll have to see how that goes.

[cascadiance]

16. I don't want to think of it as being "anti-corporation"..., but supporting the actual constitution..

The Union Pacific vs. Santa Clara decision in the 1800's wasn't even a judicial activist decision where the judges "created law" outside of the constitution. But it was a court clerk that wrote the head note for that case that in effect "created law" that stated that corporations have the same rights as people (with the laws protecting people's civil rights, etc.), aka "corporate personhood". And this court clerk was a former board member of one of the railroad companies at the time, and was definitely having a case of conflict of interests then.

If you have a judge that truly wants to follow the constitution, they will work against things like "corporate free speech" which is derived from corporate personhood, derived from this one court clerk's insertion of this "law" into the books. But with all of the decisions that falsely derived from this notion on the books, then if she's faced with this choice, she'll have to decide if she will allow such manufactured law to apply to a case, or if she will go against a lot of the "existing court case rulings" that have built onto that "court clerk activist" notion.

We need justices that aren't afraid of taking on the heavy special interests to rule correctly in these cases, to turn the clock back to times where corporations didn't have so much control over our government. This is the challenge that Ms. Sotomayor and other SCOTUS judges will face. We already know how the right wing cabal of Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas will vote on this issue. So to get this thrown out, ALL of the rest of them need to be counted on to overturn corporate personhood or it won't happen. Even Rehnquist dissented in a case against corporate personhood, and were he still alive and in power instead of Roberts, might allow for another justice to not vote down corporate personhood. That is why I'm very concerned about this big issue that affects us with so many other issues facing our congress, and how our elections are run (without public campaign financing, etc.).

[4lbs]

17. I'm reading through this large 388 page PDF that I DL'ed from DocStoc that has all of her major

rulings in it.

You can get to it via this and read it online. To DL it as a PDF to your local computer desktop, you need to register and login first.


http://www.docstoc.com/docs/6428003/Selected-Cases-of-Judge-Sonia-Sotomayor

[cwcwmack]

18. well...

Kim McLane Wardlaw would have been a MUCH better pick... also Hispanic but more polished and is currently a Judge on the 9th Circuit.

Kathleen Sullivan would have been the most INTELLIGENT choice, a real LEGAL EAGLE... The brightest mind of the bunch.