ACLU Releases Report On Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor

[Duer 157099]

Source: ACLU

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union today released a report summarizing the civil liberties and civil rights record of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who was nominated by President Obama to replace retiring Justice David Souter as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The report was prepared in accordance with ACLU policy, and will be made available to the public and members of the Senate.

Read more: http://www.aclu.org/scotus/2008term/39774prs20090608.html

[tomm2thumbs]

1. link to the .pdf here

http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/scotus/sotomayor_report.pdf

seems like you have to drill down a couple layers to get to it - posting it

[The Green Manalishi]

3. Thanks for the link Tom,

Here is what I though was a very important part:

"Judge Sotomayor has also been criticized for a 2001 speech in which she highlighted the
relatively small number of minority judges on the federal bench and, quoting Professor Martha
Minow of Harvard Law School, acknowledged that “there is no objective stance but only a series
of perspectives – no neutrality, no escape from choice in judging.”1 In elaborating on that latter
point, Judge Sotomayor added: “I would hope that a wise Latina 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.” Id. at 92. Critics of her nomination have seized on that comment as evidence

that her judicial decisions are the product of a perceived bias rather than a principled application
of the law. As noted above, the record does not substantiate that claim. Judge Sotomayor’s life
experience may have helped her to appreciate the impact of discrimination in the real world, but
she has nevertheless rejected discrimination claims that she found were not supported by the
facts or the law.

That is all I am asking for - respect for facts and law. It would be nice if a justice were truly progressive, but common sense and reasonable is pretty damn good.

[Piewhacket]

2. Important Report. Sotomayor is no progressive, and her record...

is absolutely TEPID on civil rights.

I had hoped for better. Much better. This is not the change
we were promised. This is not the change I can believe in.

[jmowreader]

4. Tepid is better than what McCain would have given us

Sadly, I fear the Democrats are holding back on serious change we can believe in until they can get Norm Coleman to shut up and go home. Until then, all we get is change Democrats think the Repukes will accept.

Still, Sotomayor is light years beyond Samuel Alito.

[FailureToCommunicate]

6. Yes, and light years beyond the OTHER black holes in the Court...

[No Elephants]

10. She is better than some of the Republicans on the Court, but I don't

think a Democrat has appointed anyone as "moderate" as she, at least not since Roosevelt.

[No Elephants]

9. I am not buying that Democrats are holding back until Franken

gets his seat.

There is no magic in 60 Senate seats, as opposed to 69, inasmuch as all Democrats do not vote in a bloc as solidly as Republicans often seem to.

[Winterblues]

13. But still likely to move the court further to the right

Souter was further to the left than Sotomayor so it is only logical the court will lean more Right in the future.

[izzybeans]

5. Where in the report does it say that?

I'm not seeing it.

[Javaman]

8. because it's easier to make unsubstantiated statements rather that read the report.

see how it works?

rinse and repeat. The left is just as bad as the right sometimes.

[Piewhacket]

12. I read the report. I was being generous. Her civil rights record is actually PUTRID.

This is not what we need to counter 30 years of the
Rehnquist court, or as a counterbalance to the two
principle insanowhacks on the court (Scalia/Thomas).

She is NO PROGRESSIVE, she's politico, read the ACLU report,
that isn't a flattering picture they paint. There is no color,
no contrast, no depth, no HEART! She is practically a one issue judge.
Ridiculous!

This isn't what we voted for. We were promised CHANGE!
This is MORE OF THE F*CKING SAME!

[cagesoulman]

11. How is she on abortion rights?

I have heard that she might be an anti-choice person.

[Triana]

7. On the claim that she's "racist"....

"Since her nomination, some critics have suggested that Judge Sotomayor’s advocacy
efforts on behalf of racial and ethnic minorities prior to her judicial career somehow call into
question her judicial impartiality and therefore disqualify her from a seat on the Supreme Court.
Her judicial record refutes any such suggestion. It is a standard, moreover, that has not been
applied to other Supreme Court nominees and that would have eliminated some of the Supreme
Court’s most prominent justices, including Thurgood Marshall."