Gratuitous Claims

Republicans who have mounted vicious attacks against Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor have unwittingly formed themselves in a circular firing squad.  By stooping low in their attacks, such as engaging in inane name-calling and by employing specious arguments, even their fellow and respected partymates disagree with them and are now the ones taking the heat.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich fired the first volley by calling Sotomayor a racist.  This accusation is based on Sotomayor’s 2001 speech at the University of California Berkeley where she mentioned that she “would hope that a wise Latino woman, with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”  Thereafter, conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh called Sotomayor a bigot and other Republicans jumped in like a pack of hungry hyenas feasting on a carcass. 

But top Republicans, such as RNC Chairman Michael Steele, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Jeff Sessions, disagree with Gingrich and company.  They refuse to engage in this baseless characterization and urge their partymates to take the high road in scrutinizing the nominee’s records. 

While concededly Sotomayor’s statement is less than judicious, labelling her racist and judging her qualification to the highest judicial post in the land on the basis of this statement is certainly naive, if not ridiculous.  A person may at times use wrong choice of words, as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, but to really judge his or her character requires more than this choice of words.  These words may be indicators of a person’s thoughts and beliefs, but are not always conclusive.  In the case of Sotomayor, her record in the bench speaks for itself that she is not racist, and her being a Latina coming from a poor family is not the only record that she will bring to the Supreme Court, as ridiculously suggested by some.

In a survey of decisions handed down by the three-judge panel federal court where Sotomayor sat as a member, prominent D.C. lawyer and Supreme Court litigation specialist Tom Goldstein concluded in his popular SCOTUSblog that “given [Sotomayor’s] record, it seems absurd to say that Judge Sotomayor allows race to infect her decisionmaking.”  Goldstein based this conclusion after finding that out of the 96 race-related cases decided by Sotomayor’s panel, she rejected discrimination as a factor by a ratio of 8 to 1.  Her panel upheld the claim of discrimination in only 10 cases,  but Goldstein was cautious to point out that these cases were successful only on procedural grounds, meaning the issue of race was not even tackled in substance and the claimants won based on certain technicalities only.

Another issue Sotomayor’s attackers are harping on is the possibility that her ethnic background will influence her decisions in the Supreme Court if confirmed.  This has, however, been sufficiently rebutted by Sotomayor’s backers by saying that a judge is also a human being who is shaped, like everyone else, by his or her background and upbringing and human nature is such that these factors would somehow factor in.   In fact, as has already been pointed out, even Justice Samule Alito, a conservative and a Republican appointee,  admitted during his confirmation hearing that his background as a child of immigrant parents influenced his decision-making on the bench, especially on discrimination and immigration-related cases.    What is important here is that this background should not be the only parameter in the decision-making process, but only as one of the perspectives on how the law is to be applied.

Finally, on the claim that Sotomayor does not possess the necessary credentials, suffice it to say that she graduated summa cum laude at Princeton, earned her J.D. from Yale Law School where she was editor of the law review journal, and brings with her a long and outstanding record of legal and judicial career.

What’s interesting in all of these is that despite the vitriols being heaped on Sotomayor, she is likely to sail through the confirmation process without much of an objection, making the attacks pointless.   The only conceivable reason Gingrich and company are doing this is to fire up their base and keep their following interested in them.  But what they really miss is that these kinds of attacks don’t really help the Republicans at all.