Sonia Sotomayor

Adam Serwer continues his live commentary on the Sonia Sotomayor hearings: Sotomayor Hearings, Day 4 — —The Editors

Yesterday, we evaluated Lindsey Graham‘s claim about PRLDEF and abortion; we learned Tom Coburn watches a lot of I Love Lucy; and the hearings themselves became a war of attrition. Replay my tweets from the entire hearing here. Daphne Eviatar points out that Al Franken asked some good questions, and that the nominee may have […]

At this point, the dynamics of the battle over Sonia Sotomayor are clear: The GOP will continue to hammer Sotomayor on her previous statements on race, gender and judging, and Sotomayor will continue to assert her impartiality, patiently repeating the refrain, “As a judge, I don’t make policy,” and that she decides her cases based […]

Yesterday, Sonia Sotomayor tried to explain how empathy could be consistent with good and impartial judging; she tried to explain her “wise Latina” comments; Jeff Sessions wanted to know why Sotomayor didn’t vote with another Puerto Rican judge on the court; Republicans tried to hide their race-based approach behind Judge Jose Cabranes‘ robe; Russ Feingold […]

Jeff Sessions began his questioning with the most inane of criticisms, that Sotomayor believes judges’ life experiences “can and do–and should” affect their rulings. It’s sort of mind-boggling that Sessions–who as a DA complained about having to prosecute civil rights violations against African-Americans — actually believes that judges can decide cases independent of their own […]

Patrick Leahy‘s first questions focused on Sotomayor’s experience as a prosecutor, particularly her experience trying the “Tarzan murderer” case, in which the perpetrator used “acrobatic feats” to gain entry to people’s homes. The case provided an opportunity for Sotomayor to emphasize her career as a prosecutor and show that “empathy” doesn’t mean not following the […]

In case you missed it, yesterday Patrick Leahy compared Sonia Sotomayor to Thurgood Marshall, Jeff Sessions called her a racist, Ben Cardin and Sheldon Whitehouse took on conservative judicial activism, John Kyl advised Sotomayor to be more like a judge he voted against confirming, Lindsey Graham revealed the GOP’s secret love for affirmative action, John […]

In her opening statement, which concluded the proceedings, Sonia Sotomayor anticipated the criticisms of her “judicial philosophy” from conservatives, and tailored her response accordingly: In the past month, many Senators have asked me about my judicial philosophy. It is simple: fidelity to the law. The task of a judge is not to make the law […]

Adam Serwer introduces you to to the family of players who will make the Sotomayor hearings this week: The confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor begin this week, but the focus won’t be on the kind of traditional culture war issues that have come to define Supreme Court battles. Instead, both the minority and majority witness […]

Jeff Sessions began his statement by saying he hoped the confirmation hearings would be “the best we’ve ever had,” before launching into a laundry list of terms being used by conservative activists to discredit Sonia Sotomayor: “bias,” “prejudice,” racial quotas. Sessions touched on every right-wing bugaboo from the court, from the influence of foreign law […]