An Internet hub with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, indies, centrists, moderates, and right
Sonia Sotomayor’s First Day at SCOTUS
HuffPost reports that she didn’t hesitate to get into the thick of things right away. There were two cases on the docket on the Court’s opening day, and Justice Sotomayor questioned the attorneys vigorously on both. McClatchy (quoted in the HuffPost piece), reports that “In just an hour, the court’s newest justice asked more questions than Justice Clarence Thomas has asked” in years. Of course, that’s not hard to do. Thomas never asks questions. What’s more impressive is that Sotomayor asked more questions than the most loquacious justice on the bench.
23 Responses to “Sonia Sotomayor’s First Day at SCOTUS”
Sotomayor fascinates me. It should be interesting to see where she comes down on the question of abortion. Though confirmation hearings appeared to put her on record favoring its wide availability, as a Latina, she's coming from a community that traditionally is very Roman Catholic. That may have an effect on her in unforeseen ways.
BTW, Kathy, have you read Jeffrey Toobin's book The Nine? It's an excellent insider's look at the SCOTUS. Here's a brief review of the book on my literary blog:
Gregory James
Keep these good posts coming!
Anytime a new Justice is appointed, it's interesting to see how they fair and judge.
I doubt I'm as optimistic as redbus on this one. I don't think there will be any suprises out of Justice Sotomayor – simply the liberal shill for which she was chosen.
But I always retain hope. She just may actually judge and not attempt to legislate from the bench. In relation to the Constitution, you should use the gavel, not a pencil and eraser.
JD
So you're comfortable with the Conservative shills?
I think an objective analysis would show “activist judges” occur on both sides of the political spectrum. Check your subjectivity at the door if you want to rate our judicial system. Because you agree with a decisicion doesn't mean it wasn't reached via activism.
We'll see where Sotomayor goes. Her 17 year record on the bench is actually pretty pedestrian. JD, she is clearly not a liberal shill…or at least has not shown that to date as a judge. Most legal analysts believe she will be similar to Justice Souter, whom she replaced, on socio-economic issues (tending liberal) and somewhat more conservative than Souter on criminal issues (she's a former federal prosecutor and has a history on the bench that supports that view).
She tends to be quite process oriented and has rarely questioned precedent in her 17 year judicial history. Obama could have gone way, way more liberal than Sotomayor.
The caveat, of course, is that the Supreme Court is different than any other court, and many justices change once there. We'll see.
Aside: If this sounds like I'm defending her, please remember that I commented numerous times in opposition to her confirmation.
HemmD -
You make an excellent point. Activist judges come in all flavors. One of the most interesting cases of conservative judicial activism relates directly to Sotomayor. In the Ricci case, she followed the law and precedent to the letter and joined an all-process driven decision. When the case got to the Supremes, the conservative majority “rewrote” the law, adding an extra condition to it, in order to overturn the Second Circuit decision. The conservative majority, in other words, “legislated from the bench.”
It will be interesting to start reading her rulings, once they begin being issued. There was some concern at the time of her selection that she could be a soldier for continued liberal judicial activism (obvious fact that the Left discredits itself time after time about, by defensively denying, or in making up nonsense about “activism” by those who are not liberal to accompany their nonsense in defense of activism), but she appeared to be much less of a threat than Obama could have chosen to present. (Indeed, at least some of what was asked of her during her Senate hearing was shockingly activist — whether she felt that people had a “first amendment 'right' to free speech” in the form of a “right” to ISP-provided, mandatory by government if “necessary,” Internet access — far more than anything she herself has said or done.)
The big thing will be, what will her rulings read like once she begins making and publishing them.
“She just may actually judge and not attempt to legislate from the bench. In relation to the Constitution, you should use the gavel, not a pencil and eraser.”
We'll have to see. If she uses only the gavel, she'll Outrage! [tm] the militant far lefties, especially if she respects the law with respect to, say, abortion (leaving it correctly to states and localities as the proper agents of legislation).
Am I comfortable with the conservative shills?
Heck no!!!
Partisanship or political ideology need to stay out of the SCOTUS.
Rule only upon the original purposes and design of the Constitution. I want the Justices to read all of what the framers of the Constitution wrote, and read THEIR intent into the Constitution, not the justices' opinions or ideology. I'm pretty sure you feel the same way.
If a conservative president, or a liberal president chooses a justice based upon ideology – it's wrong.
I didn't like the Sotomayer appointment, but after the fact, she starts with a clean slate in my book. From this point he past remarks aren't really important, how she acts on the bench is.
I *have* read Toobin's book, yes — and I agree with you that it's excellent. I very much enjoyed reading that book.
Glad we can agree on something.
Amen!
Yes, and Sotomayor was harshly criticized, by conservatives, for not legislating from the bench in that case.
(leaving it correctly to states and localities as the proper agents of legislation).
You say that as if it's an irrefutable fact, DLS. What law do you cite to reach the conclusion that a woman's freedom to choose abortion is not or should not be a constitutionally protected right?
Because the entire case of abortion is laid upon the foundation that the “fetus” is not a person, and a person does not become a citizen until birth.
Which brings me back to my unanswered question from a previous thread:
Based upon that logic, If visiting non-citizens are entitled to life (event though they are not under the Constitution), how can you eliminate a “fetus” because they are not yet citizens?
Your turn, DLS.
“Because the entire case of abortion is laid upon the foundation that the “fetus” is not a person, and a person does not become a citizen until birth.”
The legality or illegality of abortion according to the SCOTUS really has almost nothing to do with the difference between a fetus and a person. It has much more to do with privacy. You know, like not letting the government get between a doctor and hir patients, and not letting the government get between a woman and her own uterus. It was considered a conservative judgment at the time.
roro80 -
Agree mostly with one caveat. You are absolutely correct that Roe, more than anything else, completed the cirlce begun in Griswald v. Connecticut (contraception) in establishing a Constitutional right to privacy. It has since been used in many other contexts, including striking down sodomy laws that were used against gays. One of the reasons even conservative justices are relucant about overruling Roe is the privacy issue and its broad application in the years since. They don't want to tell the American people that they've changed their minds and we no longer have a right to privacy.
The caveat is that it was never regarded as a conservative opinion. At least you're the first person I've ever heard say that. The “penundrum theory” that Justice Blackmun used to cement a Constitutional privacy right has always been quite controversial, and often considered radical, even among many who agree with Roe's outcome.
Hey tidbits –
I'll have to look for my source on that one. I wasn't personally around at the time, so maybe my understanding of the context of the issue or the source I heard that from was wrong. I recall the argument was that the huge push to unite the religious right with the rest of the current Republican party hadn't really picked up steam at that point, and while it was reported by the media as a limited-goverment/personal responsibility/privacy issue at first, the religious right picked it up very quickly and ran with it.
That's true, but GreenDreams had made the point in another thread (my recent post about the supposed right to be born versus the right to live) that all of the rights in the U.S. Constitution are defined as belonging to “persons,” and that the Constitution defines “person” as “born.” Actually, to be more precise, the Constitution contains an inherent assumption that a “person” has been “born,” in that the Constitution's definition of a “citizen” is a “person” who was born in the United States or naturalized in the United States. This definition would not make sense if the Constitution's writers were including “not born” as a relevant qualification for being a “person.”
Computer down…Blackberry limited. Wil respond a.m.
“much more to do with privacy”.
I know, roro. Roe was all about privacy. I made the statement about “person” from something Kathy wrote on another post (she alludes to it again above). She put forth a flawed argument and I attempted to call her on it, but she refused to answer. And it remains unanswered.
The privacy issue is a very legitimate one. I get it. But you know something? Can you tell me how cops have the right to cavity search a person after they have allegedly ingested a balloon full of crack? Isn't that, too, inside their body? Or is it only the uterus that is private? (Rhetorical question).
The basic disagreement with this issue, is that one side considers it a private procedure within someone's private arena (the uterus). The other side sees it as murder. That is the key issue. Is it life as a fetus?
Me and a slight majority say yes it is. Many of us base that on medial research, and many of us base it upon spiritual belief, that our souls are with us upon conception.
Hi roro -
Unlike you, I was personally around at the time. No agist jokes please. Mostly I partied a lot & don't have enirely clear memories of several of those years, but here's what I recall. The Vietnam War was winding down, 18 year olds had just gotten the vote, environmentalism was bieng adopted by both sides of the aisle and the Women's Movement was the rising cause. The ERA, equal pay for equal work, and abortion rights were key issues.
Prior to Roe, several states had legalized abortion legislatively, including Wisconsin where I was at the time (at least I have some hazy memory of that being the case). Students at UW could even get abortions at University Hospital. One of the issues of the day was women travelling across state lines to get abortions, or going to Canada if that was closer. Back alley abortions were still available for those who couldn't make the trip and horror stories related to back alley abortions were abundant. The state-by-state approach seemed to be complicating the issue with safe abortions in some states and back alley butchery in others. Additionally, led by the “free love” movement of the 60's, out-of-marriage sex no longer carried the social taboo of an earlier age, and much in the way of protection wasn't practiced…HIV didn't exist, and what STDs there were, were curable. Unwanted pregnancies began to increase, particularly within “respectable” middle class families; it ceased to be just a poor or black issue.
Politically, the R's were still focused on Nixon's “Southern Strategy” and D's were trying to close the wounds over the party split caused by Vitetnam. Religious fundamentalists were basically apolitical…”give unto caesar” approach. They would not have been R's or D's because both parties supported issues like abortion rights and the ERA at high levels. VP Gerald Ford (R) openly supported the ERA and his wife Betty was a vocal supporter of abortion rights for example, though there was a block of R's who pressed a more conservative, state's rights view of women's issues.
It was in that context that Roe was taken up by the Court, shortly after the Court had ruled in Griswald v. Connecticut that states could not prohibit the sale of contraceptives, which Connecticut had been doing.
Religious fundamentalists led the fight against Roe while the women's movement headed up the other side.
It could have been “marketed” by the proponents of Roe as limited-government/personal responsibility/privacy to attract broader public support, but I don't remember that (I did spend part of '73 in Europe). In any event, it was clearly the liberal element that was pushing it, while the fundamentalists and conservative state's rightists were opposing. After Roe, and particularly after the Ford Administration, the R's began to take up the cause to attract the now-political fundamentalists to the party (one could argue that it began to emerge in 1976 when Reagan, with pro-life support, challenged sitting President Ford for the R nomination; Ford won).
Aside. Prior to the incorporation of the fundamentalists into the R party,even sucha noted conservative as Barry Goldwater was, and remained to his death, pro-choice. Moderates like George H. W. Bush were also early supporters of abortion rights, though he later “changed his mind”.
Well, there's my personal recollection, by no means historically researched, if it helps.
Wow, Tidbits. That's the best history lesson I've seen in such a short span!
Well done!
I'll echo JD in saying that was an awesome little rundown of the issue. Thanks! And I stand corrected!