Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Kris Alingod - AHN Contributor Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The American Bar Association on Tuesday deemed Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor "well qualified" for the Supreme Court. The Senate Judiciary Committee next week begins confirmation hearings for Sotomayor, who is facing Republican concerns about her membership in a controversial Hispanic advocacy group, and her ruling in a New Haven firefighter case that was overturned by the Supreme Court last week.
The 15-member Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary of ABA unanimously voted to give her their highest rating.
Some conservatives have criticized as biased, but Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Judiciary panel, was quick to say in a statement that the rating was based on "confidential, peer-review evaluations."
"The ABA's rating - an evaluation of integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament - should eliminate the doubts of naysayers who have questioned Judge Sotomayor's disposition on the bench," Leahy added.
However, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also issued a statement the same day bringing the focus back to judicial activism, and Sotomayor's ruling in favor of New Haven officials, who canceled promotions in 2003 because not enough blacks had passed qualifying examinations.
City officials were worried about being sued by African-Americans for workplace discrimination, but as it turned out they were sued by white firefighters. Sotomayor had decided for the city, but the Supreme Court last Monday reversed her ruling in a split 5-4 decision.
"It is one thing to get the law wrong, but Judge Sotomayor got the law really wrong in the Ricci case, and the New Haven firefighters suffered for it," McConnell said. "Judge Sotomayor was in leadership positions with PRLDEF [Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund] for over a decade. While there, she monitored the group's lawsuits and was described as an 'ardent supporter' of its litigation projects-one of the most important of which was a plan to sue cities based on their use of civil service exams."
"Is the way Judge Sotomayor treated the firefighters' claims in the Ricci case what President Obama means when he says he wants judges who can 'empathize' with certain groups?... my colleagues should ask themselves this important question: is she allowing her personal or political agenda to cloud her judgment and favor one group," the GOP leader added.
The 54-year-old Sotomayor, a Princeton and Yale Law School graduate, needs Senate confirmation before she can sit as the first Hispanic and third woman justice when the Supreme Court begins its new term on Oct. 5.
Democrats have set her hearings to begin on July 13 so that the Senate can confirm her by August 6, before Congress takes a month-long recess.
Republicans have threatened to delay the hearings, saying the Democratic schedule puts the shortest time frame for a nominee with one of the longest judiciary records, in order to "meet an arbitrary deadline."
The top Republican in the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), has also been blasting the White House for not providing documents related to Sotomayor's membership with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Sotomayor was a member of the group, which conservatives have called radical" for 12 years beginning 1980. She was chairperson of the group's Litigation Committee, a member of the board of directors, and part of the Ad Hoc Committee on Reorganization and Long-Range Planning.
"During her time there, the organization took extreme positions on legal issues ranging from the death penalty to abortion to racial quotas. It is absurd for the White House to say that documents relating to her work there-requested in a bipartisan letter from Chairman Leahy and myself-are not relevant," Sessions said in a statement last week, despite Congress being on a week-long July 4th recess.
"The PRLDEF documents may provide insight into her judicial approach. During Judge Sotomayor's time at PRLDEF, the organization launched a series of legal actions to throw out the test results for other city employees on the basis of race-just like in the New Haven case," Sessions added.
No comments:
Post a Comment