Leahy moved on to questioning Sotomayor on the Ricci case, lobbing a few softballs that allowed Sotomayor to explain that she had to decide the case "on the basis of established precedent". Leahy is less asking questions at this point than addressing Sotomayor's critics--he remarked that on Ricci, she was "damned if you do, damned if you don't" because she would either be ruling against a sympathetic plaintiff or overturning established precedent. Leahy called the charges of racism against her "outrageous" and quoted from the end of her "wise Latina" speech in context, before asking her to explain her perspective.
Sotomayor began by dryly remarking "no words I've ever spoken or written have received so much attention." She explained that "I was trying to inspire them to believe their life experiences would enrich our legal system, because different life experiences always do ... I wanted to make them believe they could become anything they wanted to become, just like I did."
"I want to state up front unequivocally and without doubt, I don't believe any ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judging," Sotomayor said. But, she later emphasized, her job is to decide the cases based on the law "whether their position is sympathetic or not."
-- A. Serwer
