Legal News

On Sonia, Day 8: The Senate Tour; Debating a Supermajority; More

By Ashby Jones

Eight days removed from President Obama’s pick of Sonia Sotomayor, and the news shows no signs of slowing. The stories you should read today:

Soto and the Senate: By the end of the day, if all goes according to plan, Sotomayor will have met with a whole slate of U.S. Senators, many of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who told reporters: “We have the whole package here.” Later, she is slated to meet Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY); Senate Judiciary Committee members Patrick Leahy (D-VT); Jeff Sessions (R-AL); John Kyl (R-AZ); Richard Durbin (D-IL); and the senators from her home state, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillenbrand, both Dems. While the filibuster option appears off the table, at least for now, several Republicans still have significant concerns about Sotomayor. AP; WaPo.

The Supermajority Option? We liked Ross Douthat’s piece in the NYT today partly because he only used Sotomayor as a springboard to get somewhere else: that is, what he feels to be the Supreme Court’s overused tendency to shoot down statutes. Douthat, known mostly as a conservative, says justices on both the left and the right are to blame. Justice Stevens, for example, has a penchant for voting against state laws; Justice Thomas is more likely to shoot down federal statutes. One possible solution, writes Douthat: get Congress to pass a “supermajority” requirement, making nullification of a law possible only with a supermajority (6) votes.

Soto to Add Heat? The addition of Sotomayor could spice up oral arguments, write the WSJ’s Jess Bravin and Justin Scheck. “She’s from the Bronx,” says Vincent Briccetti, a White Plains, N.Y., defense lawyer who has argued before Judge Sotomayor. “Of course she’s brusque.” he judge won a reputation as an aggressive questioner during her 11 years on the Second Circuit. “You get about five words out and she starts asking questions,” says Briccetti. Bravin and Scheck write that she could become a more liberal foil to Chief Justice Roberts.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 02, 2009 (boomark / email).