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July 14, 2009

STEPHANIE SALTER: Senate judiciary hearings: See Sonia. See Sonia not sweat

By Stephanie Salter

"Unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re going to get confirmed."

— Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor



Hmmm, let’s see. What could cause a 55-year-old Puerto Rican-American, who grew up in a Bronx housing project, lost her father in childhood, excelled in academics, graduated from Princeton University then Yale Law School, and was appointed to a federal appellate judgeship by the first President Bush, to have a complete meltdown during her Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justice?

Could it be the sight and sound of several grown men — U.S. Senators, no less — continuing to take one sentence out of context from a speech the woman delivered eight years ago?

Apparently not. After more than two months of the always-amputated “wise Latina” quote being used against her by everyone from the talking heads of Fox News to the Republican National Committee, Sonia Sotomayor knows that nothing she or her supporters say will reunite that one sentence with the body of her speech.

By now, the repetition of those words must be so much white noise, like an old refrigerator that never stops running.

Perhaps a meltdown could be inspired by the supercilious and self-righteous questions, almost all from GOP Senators, as they pick and second-guess their way through some of the many cases on which Sotomayor has ruled in her 17 years on the federal bench.

After all, unlike the successful nominees of the second President Bush — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito — Sotomayor actually has a judicial record of some heft to examine. That it has been largely ignored (kind of like the rest of the “wise Latina” speech) in the long run-up to this week’s confirmation hearings could be enough to drive any serious person to distraction.

But, again, what else is new?

When Sotomayor’s name first surfaced as the Obama White House nominee, her opponents spent weeks publicly questioning her … personality. According to an endless media parade of “experts” and “analysts,” she was too crabby, too severe, too short with or dismissive of some lawyers who’d argued before her.

As one Florida attorney, who’d tried cases in front of her, opined in a Palm Beach newspaper, Sotomayor “lacked humility and equanimity” and was “inflated and antagonistic.”

If true — many other attorneys have publicly debunked the Mean Sonia charges — what was President Obama thinking? Heaven knows, when it comes to interpreting and defending the U.S. Constitution for the rest of your life, a cheerful smile and a warm demeanor are high on the list of requisite qualifications.

Just ask those sweet peas Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.

Watching Sen. Orrin Hatch show off his legal chops Tuesday could have been especially irritating. He questioned (at stupefying length) Sotomayor’s rulings — and that of her U.S. 2nd District Court of Appeals colleagues — on Americans’ right to bear nunchucks, and on Ricci v. DeStefano, a firefighters promotion exam case.

After Sotomayor essentially told the 19-senator panel that the appellate court did in Ricci what appeals courts are supposed to do — rule on the soundness of the lower court ruling, which happened to run 78 pages — Hatch was not to be deterred. Solemnly, he wondered why she had relied on the lower court decision “rather than doing your own analysis of the issues.”

(Did someone say “activist judge”?)

Beyond that, Hatch’s other big point was that the U.S. Supreme Court recently overturned Ricci. Had the Supremes voted anything but their familiar 5-4 in the case (the ninth Roberts Court overturn, by the way), the point might have been more impressive.

Some people could have reached the meltdown point early when several Senate Judiciary Committee members used Sotomayor’s appearance to re-open a couple of partisan wounds: for Republicans, the failed appeals court confirmation of Miguel Estrada; for Democrats, the successful Roberts nomination. (Dems now feel Roberts was less than honest in his promise of baseball-umpire neutrality.)

Some people might have snarled, “I thought this was my hearing.” But not Sotomayor — even when the partisan squabble came up again on the second day of questioning.

The judge’s real show of strength so far, however, probably came on Day One of the hearings. Amid the aforementioned Jets-and-Sharks fight over Estrada and Roberts, Sotomayor (and everyone else in the hearing room) got to sit for a mini-lecture from ranking Republican Jeff Sessions of Alabama.

Referring to the wise Latina fragment, Sessions said: “Call it empathy, call it prejudice, call it sympathy, but whatever it is, it’s not law. In truth, it’s more akin to politics — and politics has no place in the courtroom.”

As playwright Mart Crowley once put it: Talk about the pot calling the kettle beige.

Politics has no place in the courtroom? No doubt, all appointed federal judges and all nine justices, including the retired David Souter, would agree.

Politics is just what gets federal judges into the courtroom, thanks to partisan presidents and partisan confirmation committee members. And politics is what has turned this most recent Supreme Court confirmation process into a national referendum on a woman almost no ordinary American had ever heard of until May.

Significantly, Sotomayor did not dive across the table and grab Sessions by the throat. She didn’t even give him a withering reply that included the very different definitions of empathy, prejudice and sympathy.

At the end of Day Two, if her forged steel core was anywhere near meltdown, Sonia wasn’t showing it.



Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.

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