TBC Statement on Sotomayor

Statement of Manuel Miranda, Chairman of the Third Branch Conference

As a Hispanic, I join today in the shared national sentiment in seeing the American promise achieved by having a woman of Puerto Rican descent reach high office. I regret that cheap politics denied us all the pride we would have shared if tomorrow there were two Hispanics on the Supreme Court. Instead, Miguel Estrada, the Honduran immigrant whose life story overcoming a language barrier and a stutter to graduate with honors from Columbia and Harvard makes Sotomayor look like Shirley Temple, was not given an equal opportunity. Democrats denied that great talent the decency of even a vote and treated him like a dog because “he is Latino.”

One week after the Sotomayor nomination was announced, the Third Branch Conference, as a coalition of 150 conservative leaders, joined to set the tone and achievable metrics for the confirmation debate.

As evidenced from the declining levels of support for President Obama and Judge Sotomayor, even among Hispanics, it was for good reason no doubt that Senate Democrat leadership rushed hearings and hid the Sotomayor confirmation with a negligible amount of scheduled floor time not befitting a Supreme Court nomination.

Conservatives, however can be pleased with the vote of 31 Republicans. Third Branch asked Republicans to make crystal clear why Americans should believe that they are intelligent defenders of the written Constitution. They did. Third Branch asked Republicans to alert Americans to the consequences of their popular vote for a president or a senator. They did. Conservatives hoped that Republican senators would correct the error of the last two nominations of a Democratic president and do one thing only: make a point. They have.

Each Supreme Court confirmation process in modern times has left an imprint in Senate precedent and public expectations. Because of the progress made in the Roberts and Alito hearings, the Sotomayor’s hearings were relatively free of boorish posturing over masked litmus tests. This is one reason why the Sotomayor hearings focused more on the nominee’s judicial philosophy, evidenced in her speeches, rather than her decisions.

Not all nominees will have as many extra-curricular meanderings as Sonia Sotomayor, but we can now expect that judicial philosophy, i.e. not ideology but rather how one approaches the work of a federal judge, evidenced by outside writings and speeches as well as judicial record, will become a fixture of future confirmation hearings This is progress for all, given the likelihood that it will disqualify from President Obama’s future nominations many jurists and legal scholars who have expressed radical viewpoints, which like Sotomayor’s, when heard spoken beyond friendly and unquestioning audiences, and brought before disinfectant Senate lights, are indefensible. This will serve President Obama well.

Like the Alito confirmation, the Sotomayor confirmation represents progress in ending the stigma caused by the 1987 Robert Bork hearings that resulted in the practice of stealth nominations. Judge Alito had the deepest judicial record of any Supreme Court nominee in over 50 years. Now President Obama has topped that. As Judge Sotomayor made clear to all, her 18 year judicial record was her strong card and her saving grace. Following this example will serve all presidents well.

The Sotomayor confirmation debate has made future nominations of Republican presidents easier also. In the hearing record at least, Judge Sotomayor left no sunshine between herself and recent Republican nominees. We know this partly from the frothy disappointment expressed by liberal scholars and bloggers. Future nominees of Democratic presidents will now have to meet the Sotomayor standard.

Of course, the achievement conservatives most sought was to see the backbone that 31 Republican senators have shown in opposing the Sotomayor nomination for many good reasons. This is a far departure from the overwhelming support that Republicans gave to President Clinton’s two, arguably, far-more-objectionable nominees, Judges Ginsburg and Breyer, just one decade ago.

This result has many ingredients; among them is the taint President Obama placed on his nominee by stating a nomination standard of “heart” and “empathy” in the language of politics, which, probably by coincidence, matched perfectly the foot of the nominee’s own relativist, post modernist speeches, and her Achilles heel.

McCain to Oppose Sotomayor

The AP's Julie Hirschfeld Davis reports:

WASHINGTON— Republican Sen. John McCain says he’ll oppose Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor when the Senate votes on her confirmation this week.

The Arizona senator calls Sotomayor a judicial activist who tried to walk back from that record during her confirmation hearings. He says President Barack Obama’s nominee has used her position as a judge to try to change the law.

McCain is one of several Republicans from states with heavily Hispanic populations to come out against Sotomayor, the daughter of Puerto Rican parents raised in a New York City housing project and educated in the Ivy League.

McCain says Sotomayor’s life story is inspiring and compelling, but he says that’s not enough to qualify her for a position on the high court.