Legal News

The Hip Phrase of the Summer? ?Ultimately and Completely?

By Ashby Jones

Judge Sotomayor’s everybody-be-nice tour of the Senate on Tuesday was probably not a sign of how she’ll be treated during her confirmation hearings, likely to come this summer. But we were introduced to this phrase — “ultimately and completely” — which Senators Leahy and Sessions both reported Sotomayor used to describe the degree to which she intends to follow the law once confirmed.

Click here for the writeup from the BLT blog, which was quick to identify what could become this summer’s super hip phrase. (Q: ‘Were you at the P.S. 1 Summer Warmup on Sunday?’ A: ‘OMG, Ultimately and Completely.’)

According to the BLT, Leahy reported an exchange thusly: “What she said was, ‘Of course one’s life experience shapes who you are, but ultimately and completely’ - she used those words - ‘ultimately and completely, as a judge, you follow the law,’” Leahy said. “There’s not one law for one race or another. There’s not one law for one color or another. There’s not one law for rich; a different one for poor. There’s only one law.” Sessions also reported that she used that expression.

Click here for the WSJ’s writeup on how the day went for Sotomayor. Sounds like she and Sessions got along swimmingly, but that the Alabama Senator still has his reservations. When he was asked whether she allayed his concerns that she might be a judicial activist, he said: “I don’t know that we got into that sufficiently to talk about it. . . . I don’t think I exhausted that question at all today.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 03, 2009 (boomark / email).