Legal News

On the Sotomayor Pick: Views from the Right

By Ashby Jones

Our mailbox is aflood with responses, requests, opinions and the like on President Obama’s selection of Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring justice David Souter.

For now, let’s give you a sampling of what folks on the right side of the political spectrum are saying about Sotomayor — we’ll give you views from the left in a bit.

Ed Whelan, President, Ethics & Public Policy Center:

President Obama abided by his dismal and lawless "empathy" standard and, in his selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, picked a nominee whom he can count on to indulge her own liberal biases. Sotomayor's outrageous shenanigans in Ricci v. DeStefano-the case now awaiting a ruling by the Supreme Court in the next four weeks or so-shows what the Obama "empathy" standard means in practice: disfavoring politically incorrect litigants, in this case firefighters who devoted their spare time and their scarce resources to study hard for and pass a promotional exam.

See here for more on Sotomayor's incoherent account of her selective empathy, here for her sorry record of Supreme Court reversals (a record made worse by the Court's recent reversal of her ruling in the Riverkeepers case), and here for Jeffrey Rosen's recounting of liberal concerns that Sotomayor just isn't smart enough.

Wendy Long, Counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network:

Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one’s sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.

She reads racial preferences and quotas into the Constitution, even to the point of dishonoring those who preserve our public safety. On September 11, America saw firsthand the vital role of America’s firefighters in protecting our citizens. They put their lives on the line for her and the other citizens of New York and the nation. But Judge Sotomayor would sacrifice their claims to fair treatment in employment promotions to racial preferences and quotas. The Supreme Court is now reviewing that decision.

She has an extremely high rate of her decisions being reversed, indicating that she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court.

Tiger Joyce, President, the American Tort Reform Association:

Judge Sotomayor's apparent embrace of 'regulation through litigation' is a matter of concern for those of us who believe that unelected judges should not actively seek to make policy.

Judge Sotomayor's candid remarks at Duke Law School a few years ago have recently become a much reported YouTube sensation wherein she says, 'It is the court of appeals where policy is made.'

That's a disconcerting concept that arguably flies in the face of the Constitution's separation of powers, which properly leaves policymaking in the hands of the elected branches of government.

In an era when the plaintiffs' bar and certain special interests are unapologetically pursuing through the courts various policy ends that they have been unable to achieve through the political process, Judge Sotomayor's comment should trigger a thorough discussion of the judiciary's role in formulating public policy during her confirmation hearing.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 26, 2009 (boomark / email).