The Senate confirmation hearing, committee vote and floor vote have come and gone. Judge Sotomayor is now a member of the United States Supreme Court. May God bless her, guide her and grant her restraint in her rulings.
That said, it is difficult to be optimistic. Justice Sotomayor has expressly, and flippantly, embraced the idea that judges do, and seemingly should, make law. She puts race and sex above reason. And, she was nominated by a President more concerned about empathy than judgment.
Her nomination was an important one – even as conservatives, including a few Republicans, have been fighting a war on multiple fronts, from health care to economics, national defense to abortion, and much more. But the composition of the Supreme Court has as much or more effect – especially in the long run – on our ability to live free from the strong arm of government as any of the branches or levels of our federal (that is, national, state and local) system… which should tell you all you need to know about the state of things.
Justice Sotomayor’s confirmation also raised the issue of the current courtship of the Hispanic population by both democrats and republicans. The media and many democrats will try to make this an anti-Hispanic vote – and indeed, already are trying to do so. So, it was incumbent upon Republicans, at this critical moment in history, to make the case against Sotomayor based on her views, not her race, and to, perhaps more importantly, begin to establish a clear standard for all future nominees.
How did they do? On the whole, they fared much better than expected (partly because we expect so little), but not as good as they should have. Overall Grade: C+.
The Great: A+… Candidate Marco Rubio, and, surprisingly, John McCain.
The Good: B… Mitch McConnell, Jeff Sessions, Jon Kyl, John Cornyn and a few others
The Bad: C… That same leadership did not extend to a Republican Conference-wide, all-hands-on-deck effort to make the case loudly and clearly
The Ugly: F… Race and the National Rifle Association.
The Pathetic: No grade warranted… Lamar Alexander, Lindsey Graham and the other Republicans who discarded principle to vote to confirm
A few of our newly minted spokesmen for all those seemingly ubiquitous new Republican moderates out there are starting to say that if we oppose Sotomayor, we do so at our own risk. By this they mean that if we are seen to oppose a strong Hispanic woman we will be hurting our chances further with Hispanic voters. To this one can only say poppycock. Sotomayor should be opposed and vigorously but not because of anything other than her rather un-judicial judicial philosophy.
