(Some history occurred yesterday. Congratulations Justice Sotomayor! – promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Great to see you all again! It’s always a pleasure to visit Calitics, especially on days like today when we have occasion to celebrate.
Today, by a 68 – 31 vote, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court!
I couldn’t be more thrilled that this talented and experienced judge will be joining the highest court in the land. She will be an amazing asset to our country on the Supreme Court.
This is a time to celebrate. I hope you’ll join me in congratulating Justice Sotomayor right now.
When Justice David Souter first announced that he would be retiring, I urged President Obama to nominate a well-qualified woman to ensure that the Court more accurately reflects the diversity of backgrounds and perspectives in America.
I think you’ll agree: President Obama responded by making an excellent choice with Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Throughout Justice Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, I was impressed by her poise, her thoughtful responses, and the depth of experience she will bring to bear on critical constitutional questions. Those are exactly the qualities we need in our Supreme Court Justices.
Justice Sotomayor’s story is quintessentially American. From the Bronx, to Princeton, to the Supreme Court, she has worked hard, honored the law, and succeeded. She is an example for all Americans of what each and every one of us can strive to be.
When Justice Sotomayor takes her place on the Supreme Court, I want her to know that our best wishes go with her.
I want her to know that, even in the most difficult of cases, we stand behind her – and thank her for her clarity of judgment and fidelity to the law.
Help me send that message.
Please sign our online card for Justice Sonia Sotomayor now!
In Friendship,
Barbara Boxer
P.S. We’ll be delivering our card to Justice Sotomayor’s new office at the Supreme Court next week, so make sure your signature – and your own personal comments – are on it. We’ll also be posting some of the comments on our new Boxer Blog. So please sign our online congratulations card for Justice Sonia Sotomayor right now – and offer your own personal best wishes as well!
Much like Obama, I’m more impressed with what we accomplished than who we got. I fear that Sotomayor is going to end up being a pro-corporate centrist who will leave the balance of the Court basically the same as it was with Souter.
I could not be more proud that we’ve confirmed the first Latina to the Supreme Court. Justice Sotomayor is more than well qualified and she is a thoughtful and principled legal scholar. That being said, I think we’ll look back on her appointment as a missed opportunity to put a staunch progressive on the Court. I hope I’m proven wrong.
One had such hopes for Obama. One had hoped that we would finally have our first truly Democratic President since Carter left office. The nomination of Sotomayor was a poor choice.
It seems as if everyone has been writing about how “qualified” Sotomayor is for the high Court. No one, though, has said what those qualifications are. She did well at Princeton, an excellent university. She then went to Yale Law, a school which prides itself on training “policy makers”, not lawyers. She spent five years as a DA and then six years working for a boutique firm in New York City, chasing counterfeit goods. She was never, it appears, involved in the larger legal community. (Yes, her work with certain not-for-profits is good, but it makes for a thin resume.) She has, apparently, never argued a case before the Supreme Court.
She then spent 17 years as a trial court and court of appeals judge. There seems to be a misconception amongst many that being a “judge” qualifies one to be a “justice”. It does not. The jobs are completely different. One would like to see Democratic Presidents nonminating people who have actually been involved in the community. People who have been judges for a long time tend to think first of the institution of the Courts first.
There was a case decided last June by the Supreme Court that arose out of Massachusetts. The issue was whether the trial court could admit evidence by affidavit in a criminal trial. The Supreme Court (5 to 4) said no, that such a process violated the confrontation clause in the Sixth Amendment. The dissenters all bemoaned the additional “burden” placed on trial courts by having to actually guarantee the rights of criminal defendants. That is the problem of elevating judges to justices. They remain judges and never become justices.
Historically, Democratic Presidents have tended to nominate non-judges to the US Supreme Court. Republican Presidents have tended to nominate lower court judges. All the judges on the US Supreme Court (now including Sotomayor) have been elevated from lower courts.
President Clinton had two openings on the Court to fill, to which he named Ruth Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer. Both Ginsberg and Breyer were recommended to Clinton by Orrin Hatch, who told Clinton that they would be easy to confirm. Both Ginsberg and Breyer were elevated from lower Courts.
The last true Democratic nominee to the Supreme Court was Thurgood Marshall. He argued quite a few cases before the Court that he eventually joined. One of those was Brown v. Board of Education. That is the definition of a legal star, worthy of consideration for nomination.
The President should have sought out a star for the Court. Instead, he found a bit player who does not seem to have the qualifications for the post.