GOP Senators: Stand Athwart History

There is unfortunately no doubt that Judge Sonya Sotomayor will be confirmed as an Associate Justice to our nation?s highest court. As National Review?s Jim Geraghty pointed out, ?when a still relatively popular president nominates a judge with 17 years? experience to be the first Latina Supreme Court Justice, and his party holds 60 seats in the Senate, the final result is not hard to predict.? The Senate Democrats are infatuated with her, as I watched the hearings on CSPAN; almost every democratic senator prefaced their comments by stating their adoration for Judge Sotomayor. They all applauded her academic achievements, ?graduated summa cum laude from Princeton,? and hailed her as the embodiment of the ?American Dream.? This is all true, and she deserves credit for her scholarship, successful legal career, and her ability to have risen out of the working class as a ?novus homo,? but as nationally syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer simply noted in his May 29 column:

?Sonia Sotomayor has a classic American story. So does Frank Ricci.?

Ricci is of the course, the dyslexic New Haven Firefighter who ?spent $1,000 on books, quit his second job so he could study eight to 13 hours a day, and, because of his dyslexia, hired someone to read him the material.? He was then denied his promotion to lieutenant because none of the African-American firefighters who passed the exam had scored high enough to be considered for the positions. The City of New Haven feared a lawsuit over the test?s disparate impact on a protected minority and therefore invalidated the examination scores. Judge Sotomayor?s decision to uphold the lower court?s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, clearly shows, despite her very weak attempts to dismiss the accusation at her confirmation hearings, that she is a strong believer in identity politics, ?which assigns free citizens to ethnic and racial groups possessing a hierarchy of wisdom and entitled to a hierarchy of claims upon society.?

During the hearings, her efforts to hide the real Sotomayor were blatantly transparent. Her comments do not reflect her record. She defended her racially hierarchical statements by replying; ?I also, as I explained, was using a rhetorical flourish that fell flat.? In later questioning she told Senator Kyl that ?it was a bad idea.? However, if it was it a bad idea, and a ?flourish that fell flat,? why did she repeat her comments six separate times rather than try and recant them after she first issued the comment? The answer is she has a clear credibility gap.

Sotomayor also repeatedly stated that her role as judge is to merely ?interpret the law,? and that ?we don?t make policy choices in the court,? despite that in a 2005 appearance at Duke University she stated that the ?Court of Appeals is where policy is made.?

Liberal Georgetown law professor Mike Seidman wrote that he was ?completely disgusted by Judge Sotomayor’s testimony.? He furthered his disapproval by saying ?if she was not perjuring herself, she is intellectually unqualified to be on the Supreme Court. If she was perjuring herself, she is morally unqualified.?

Unfortunately, at least three Republican Senators ? Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, Mel Martinez of Florida, and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine (not surprisingly ), said they intended to vote for her after the confirmation hearings this past week. While assuredly Sotomayor will be confirmed, the Republican Senators need to be unified in dissent. This will show the American people that elections have consequences.
As Krauthammer wrote,

?Vote Democratic and you get mainstream liberalism: A judicially mandated racial spoils system and a jurisprudence of empathy that hinges on which litigant is less advantaged.”

Just as the House Republicans united in opposition against the stimulus bill in January, the Sotomayor confirmation vote presents another opportunity for them to stand behind principle, conservatives don?t vote to confirm judicial activists. The Senate Republicans need to vote a collective ?no,? and to borrow a line from William F. Buckley, Jr., stand ?athwart history yelling stop.?

-sam