Legal News

Soto Confirmed, 68-31; But What Does the Vote Mean for the Next Battle?

By Ashby Jones

This just in: The Senate has voted 68-31 to confirm Second Circuit judge Sonia Sotomayor to a position as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. She replaces retired Justice David Souter.

So what does the vote mean? On the one hand, that she was confirmed was hardly surprising; given all the pregaming, we practically knew not only that she’d be confirmed but that she’d get around 68 votes.

On the other, the 31 Republicans who voted against her seem pretty pleased with themselves, according to this story, by the Dow Jones Newswires’s Kristina Peterson.

Why? Here’s why, according to Peterson:

[T]he show of party unity will discourage Mr. Obama from choosing a more liberal candidate in future picks and that the arguments they developed against Judge Sotomayor set a precedent for rejecting what they see as “activist” judges.

Said one Republican aide: “I think from the beginning a lot of people have seen this as setting up the stage for the next one.”

Ed Whelan, who’s banged a loud drum against the Sotomayor nomination from the get-go, had this to say, via the National Review’s Web site:

What is striking is that Judge Sotomayor, despite her inspiring personal history and despite the powerful advantage of being the first Hispanic nominee to the Supreme Court, earned so many negative votes. . . . Congratulations to the 31 Republican senators who stood on principle against Judge Sotomayor's unsound vision of the judicial role and against her deceptive testimony.

Democrats, on the other hand, were pleased; and seemed unfazed by the 31 “nay” votes. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), says the Republican opposition may have cost them leverage in the next judicial confirmation. “If they oppose someone as moderate as Sotomayor, then the president will think, ‘Who wouldn’t they oppose?’ ” he said.

Akin Gump’s Tom Goldstein, the man who predicted Sotomayor would be confirmed only two days after her nomination, seemed to agree: “I can’t imagine this president nominating someone more conservative than Judge Sotomayor, so there is no hope for bipartisanship in the next nomination.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 06, 2009 (boomark / email).