http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/06/politics/main5220735.shtml?tag=stack
In a somewhat party-line vote, the Senate (finally) approved Sonia Sotomayor today as the first Latina, and only second women ever to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Congratulations to the Hon. Justice Sotomayor.
As a personal comment. The issues raised about Ms. Sotomayor were mostly smoke-screen. Each of us, during our lives have uttered words on rare occassion we would prefer to have said differently - the examination of her judicial record showed a very even-handed approach, moreso than the likes of Roberts, Scalia and Alito, FAR more so than Bork.
Yet, I supported the approval of Roberts, Scalia and Alito, as the President, by and large, should get to choose his or her Supreme Court Justices barring the presentment for review of wholly unqualified people. I have no issue with questions, I have no issue with reservations, but barring a smoking gun, the vote should be 'aye.' While I may not like every decision, the discretion of whom to appoint for consideration is the President's alone. It is not the right of the Senate to dictate the 'type' of person who they feel is suitable for approval, and certainly not based on political feelings.
Prior to 1998, and REALLY prior to GW Bush, the votes have normally (with the noted exceptions of Bork and Thomas) been pretty unanimous. That ceased with Bush, and it is not to the Democrats credit. The Republicans comported themselves better during Clinton than the Democrats did during Bush '43.
I am glad that this is settled, and would that we could return to our conversations the days of more civicly responsible conduct, including restoring a sense of duty to the conduct and conversations of our elected officials.
I too am glad that Judge Sotomayor has been confirmed as the third woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (retired) and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg precede her.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I don't care for many of the opinions written by Chief Justice Roberts, or J.J. Alito or Scalia, they all are qualified to sit on the Supreme Court, and I agree, I don't think any senator, from either party, should have voted against them. As for Justice Thomas, in my opinion, he was not qualified, and the Senate should have rejected him. NOT because of the unproven allegations of harassment, but because his intellectual and judicial qualifications were mediocre at best, and better described as sub-par.
That being said, I believe that Justice Sotomayor will be an excellent justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
She was not my first preference, but she seems a fair enough person to do the job. I wish her well, and hope that she pleasantly surprises her supporters and her detractors alike.
ReplyDeleteI think the Senate sometimes forgets that all they are supposed to look at is if the person is qualified. Sometimes the people can remind them of this. Daschle from South Dakota (I think but somewhere in that part of the country for sure) was the one who organized the Senate to filibuster any appointment by Bush to death, the next time he was up for election he was replaced and the major campaign issue was the Senate not doing its job filling judicial seats. One judge I watched get shot down was Pickering (he was from Mississippi and I grew up there). He was called a racist in the hearings but when you asked the local NAACP in MS they would tell you that in the 60s his court was the only court where blacks got a fair trial and he was a large part of running the KKK out of the state, not exactly what you would expect from a racist.
ReplyDeleteTTuck,
ReplyDeleteI do have a conflict with Pickering - and generally this whole approach to 'strict constructionism.'
While I generally want the President to get his/her picks, it's hard to accept anyone who embraces this idea as qualified. Such argument flies counter to the founder's philosophy of a living document. Jefferson especially talked about the idea that the liberties defined in the Constitution will be seen in a different light by different people and that is FULLY what he embraced. Further, the vision of those fathers was about a principal, a premise of preventing a tyranny of the majority (or the powerful) - the principal is the guide, not the limit of the words themselves. While we can say 'who are YOU to determine today what is Constitutional when such interpretation may change?', my reply is, "That's exactly WHY we look to select the best and brightest of our legal minds to interpret and inform on what the principals mean."
However, I DO grasp that's a slippery slope. It's not an easy answer either, because using the idea of 'just what's written' is FAR FAR too confining for a modern federalist state. We've incorporated amendments, something completely foriegn to our founding fathers. They may have MEANT it, but they didn't SAY it - and so we'd not have protections against restraints of speech or the press or religion etc.. so long as they were done by states rather than the federal government.
While I will accept Pickering was a progressivist in MS in the 60's, he also was hide-bound to words rather than principal, he was a devotee to the letter of the law than the spirit, and it seemed that, over time, just as happens with many of us, he became much more engrained in concepts which were considered progressive in 1965 (i.e. you COULD discriminate openly, you just had limits - that would be progressive), but which by 1985 were no longer progressive. As a comparison, what was considered fairly tolerant - to think of homosexuality as 'acceptible' if sort of deviant - in 1975 - was considered highly objectionable by 1995. Yet many people continue/continued to hold such a belief.
My point was more about the fact that rather than argue his qualifications they just branded him a racist because they disagreed with his politics. And really I think you need a few strict constructionists on the court even if they are in the minority. They can play devil's advocate and keep some of the activist judges from going to far the other direction.
ReplyDelete