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WORLD> America
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US Senate confirms 1st Hispanic Supreme Court justice
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-07 09:27
The Republicans decried Obama's call for "empathy" in a justice, painting Sotomayor as the embodiment of an inappropriate standard that would let a judge bring her personal whims and prejudices to the bench. Her writings and speeches "reflect a belief not just that impartiality is not possible, but that it's not even worth the effort," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader. "In Judge Sotomayor's court, groups that didn't make the cut of preferred groups often found that they ended up on the short end of the empathy standard." Democrats, for their part, hailed the vote as a breakthrough achievement for the country, on par with enactment of civil rights laws. They warned Republicans they risked a backlash from Hispanic voters in the short term and an enduring black mark on their party in history books by opposing Sotomayor's confirmation.
A number of Republican senators argued Sotomayor's speeches and record made her unacceptable. They pointed to rulings in which they said she showed disregard for gun rights, property rights and job discrimination claims by white employees. And they repeatedly cited comments she had made about the role that a judge's background and perspective can play, especially a 2001 speech in which she said she hoped a "wise Latina" judge would usually make better decisions than a white man. "She has bluntly advocated a judicial philosophy where judges ground their decisions not in the objective rule of law, but in the subjective realm of personal 'opinions, sympathies and prejudices,"' said Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee. Republicans have been particularly critical of Sotomayor's position on the US Constitution's Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. She was part of a federal appeals court panel in New York that ruled this year that the amendment limits only the federal government, not states, a decision in keeping with previous Supreme Court precedent. Gun rights supporters said her panel should not have called the issue "settled law," and they criticized her for refusing during her confirmation hearings to go beyond what the high court has said and declare that the Second Amendment applies to the states. The National Rifle Association, a gun rights advocacy group, strongly opposed her and threatened to downgrade its ratings of any senator who voted to confirm Sotomayor. The warning made little impact on Democrats, but it may have influenced some Republicans who were initially considered possible supporters but have since announced their opposition, citing gun rights as a key reason. In the final tally, nine Republicans joined majority Democrats and the Senate's two independents to support Sotomayor's confirmation. They included the Senate's few Republican moderates and its lone Hispanic Republican, retiring Sen. Mel Martinez, as well as conservative southern Sens. Lindsey Graham and Lamar Alexander, the party's third-ranking leader.
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