by James Oliphant
Much of the speculation surrounding the Sotomayor hearings has centered on the role that will be played by Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.
This is Sessions' first confirmation hearing of any kind as the top Republican and several senators may take their cues from him. But he's walking a fine line.
Republicans are concerned that coming out too aggressively against Sotomayor, a history-making nominee as the first Latina named to the high court, will damage the party with Hispanic and other minority voters--the same demographics the GOP needs to court to regain its national footing.
Sessions, a former U.S. attorney, is an unlikely face for any Republican rebranding effort however. He's a conservative, old-school Alabaman--and he sounds like it. The contrast between Sessions' antebellum accent and Sotomayor's nasally New York drawl will make for compelling television, as well as serve as a potent symbol of where this nation was and where it's going.
But Sessions signaled Monday morning, as the hearings got underway, that's he ready to be the Republican point man for criticizing the nominee. He called Sotomayor's stated belief, expressed several times in speeches, that life experiences impact her judging "shocking and offensive to me."
He mocked the president's "empathy" standard for selecting a nominee, questioned her role as a board member of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund in the 1980s, and puzzled over the her court's opinion in the Ricci v. New Haven firefighter case, in which her three-judge panel sided with minority applicants who performed less favorably on promotion tests than their white colleagues. That decision was reversed by the Supreme Court.
"It seems to me that in Ricci, Judge Sotomayor's empathy for one group of firefighters turned out to be prejudice against the others," Sessions said.
Sessions is likely to begin questioning Sotomayor in earnest Tuesday morning.
Comments
I personally hope the Republicans grill her good.. I am concerned by her decisions epically the last one that seemed to be a racist one.. If blacks want to be equal than there should be one test and those that pass should be taken/promoted whatever.. I am sick of affirmative action and it's ability to in itself causing in effect revise racism. Her comments on a wise Latino women are also something to be concerned about.. it in it self wouldn't have been bad had she not added better than a white man.. this was said more than once.. making her sound arrogant and sexually discriminatory.. how about a white female? black female? having many Latino's in my family.. I can tell you they find this statement VERY racist.. If the Republicans don't back her they won't lose votes but gain them.. however they aren't on the pity pot of poor me I was raised poor so when I get some where it's because of my nationality that its so great.. it's because I am an American and worked hard and sacrificed to make it as a person not as a minority.. Plenty of whites also have come from humble beginnings and made it with NO help.. lets get someone in the Senate who is color blind not color orientated..
Posted by: Independent Voter Joliet | July 13, 2009 12:00 PM