Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing began today and the end of the process is about as foregone a conclusion as you’re likely to find in politics.
Which is probably good. Judge Sotomayor has three crucial qualities going for her: (1) The president wants her to be the newest justice of the Supreme Court (and he won the election last November); (2) she is not crazy; (3) she is perfectly well qualified for the job.
Yes, John Roberts and Sam Alito fit all those criteria as well and then-Senator Obama voted against their confirmation. He shouldn’t have. But Republicans have a chance to show more respect for this president’s nominations than he showed for his predecessor’s.
Republicans will fill their roles, of course, asking whether Judge Sotomayor really thinks Latina judges are smarter and more sensible than white dude judges; digging into her comments about Circuit courts being the places where policy is made; and asking what her beef was with the New Haven, Connecticut, firefighters.
Appropriate questions all, and I’m sure she’ll have appropriate and sensible answers to all of them (probably more sensible answers than a white guy would have).
She didn’t get into any of that today, except to say that her “judicial philosophy” is “fidelity to the law” (at which point most of the Senate panel fell asleep).
Beyond that, her statement was largely a paint-by-numbers exercise, which is not a criticism of Judge Sotomayor. Judges don’t often make political statements. I’m sure the White House had a heavy hand in today’s remarks, which wove a patriotic tapestry fit for a national party convention.
- Thank you to mom? Check.
- Hard-working, undereducated father? Check.
- Raised by a single mother? Check.
- Kitchen table conversations? Check.
- Rising above circumstances through education? Check. (Triple word score for Princeton and Yale Law.)
And just so no one gets any funny ideas about painting Judge Sotomayor as a loony liberal, we heard about her time as a prosecutor in New York City (working for Jack McCoy), during which she “felt the suffering of victims’ families” and “learned the tough job law enforcement has protecting the public safety.”
No revolving-door justice here.
As Lindsay Graham said to Judge Sotomayor today, “Unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re going to get confirmed.”
And Republicans really should look at this nomination as a gift. Given her experience in New York, it’s not inconceivable that she’ll be to the right of David Souter on some issues. From a philosophical perspective, she’s likely to be the best option Republicans can hope for from this president. They might want to get the vote out of the way before he changes his mind.
