Talk About Empathy

When President Obama mentioned empathy as one of the qualities he seeks in a Supreme Court nominee, Republicans and conservatives spared no time lambasting him, saying “empathy” is a code word for an activist judge or one who would interpret the law not in accordance with the intent of those wrote it but according to his or her own views and feelings.  But empathy might just be what Sen. Jeff Sessions has when he told Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor that she would get a fair confirmation hearing when the Senate Judiciary Committee considers her nomination.

 

Senators Sessions and Leahy – strange bedfellows?

 

In an interesting item on CNN this morning, CNN senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash reported that 23 years ago, when  39 year-old Jeff Sessions was Alabama’s Attorney General, Senator Sessions was nominated by then President Ronald Reagan to become a federal judge.  But due to charges of racial insensitivity – stemning from Session’s calling of a black man a boy and tagging the NAACP as engaging in “un-amercian activities,” among others – Session’s nomination was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Just like Judge Sotomayor, Sessions has been branded as racist by Democratic senators who opposed his nomination.    

Now Senator Sessions will be among those in the Senate Judiciary Committee – the same committee that rejected his bid for judgeship 23 years ago – who will consider the nomination of Judge Sotomayor.  If anything, it’s probably empathy that is now restraining Sessions from joining the vitriolic attacks of his Republican partymates against Judge Sotomayor.  Interestingly, Senator Sessions now shares the committee with colleagues who were once his detractors, such as its chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who made sure Sessions’s nomination would not be confirmed.

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