Thread: Sonia Sotomayor wins backing of Senate committee

Sonia Sotomayor wins backing of Senate committee
The Senate Judiciary Committee mostly sticks to party lines in a 13-6 vote. The full Senate is expected to confirm the appointment next week.

By David G. Savage and Mark Silva
9:17 AM PDT, July 28, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- Judge Sonia Sotomayor, poised to become the first Latino member of the U.S. Supreme Court, won the support of the Senate Judiciary Committee today in a lopsided vote cast largely along party lines for President Barack Obama's first nominee for the nation's highest court.

The committee voted 13-6 to send its recommendation to the full Senate, which is expected to confirm Sotomayor's appointment next week.


With all of the committee's Democrats supporting Sotomayor, Sen. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin called the president's nominee "a thoughtful, careful and intelligent judge" with "a perspective that the court sorely needs. ... Not only will Judge Sotomayor be the first Latina to serve on the court, and the third woman, but also the first with experience as a trial judge."

With five of the Judiciary Committee's six Republicans opposing Sotomayor's confirmation, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said he had found "too many controversies and too many unresolved conflicts" in Sotomayor's long record as a federal judge in New York.

Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa also said that Sotomayor's testimony before the committee had left him "with more questions than answers. ... I am not sure that Judge Sotomayor is capable of wearing the judicial blindfold," he said. "Unfortunately, I'm not convinced that Judge Sotomayor will be able to set aside her personal preferences and prejudices."


The Democratic-controlled committee voted overwhelmingly to forward Sotomayor's nomination to the full, Democratic-run Senate, which is expected to confirm her with the support of several Republicans on the Senate floor.

The Senate is expected to set a debate and a final vote for next week.

If confirmed, Sotomayor is unlikely to change the ideological balance of the high court, since she will replace moderately liberal Justice David H. Souter.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the sole Republican on the Judiciary Committee who supported the new president's first nominee to the high court today, had complained that her record was "left of center." Yet Graham also maintained that a president deserves deference on well-qualified candidates.

"I didn't feel good about the election, but we lost," said Graham (R-S.C.), who supported Republican Sen. John McCain in the presidential election.

"I feel good about Judge Sotomayor," Graham told the Judiciary Committee today. "What she will do as a judge I think will be based on what she thinks is right," he said, speaking of her record on the federal bench. "I haven't seen this activism that we should all dread and reject."

He has noted, however, that then-Sen. Barack Obama and most of his Democratic colleagues had not followed that principle with President George W. Bush's two Supreme Court nominees. In 2006, when Republicans held a slim majority, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s nomination was passed out of the Judiciary Committee on a 10-8 vote.

He was confirmed by the Senate on a 58-42 vote, with only four Democrats in favor. In 2005, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. won a 13-5 vote from the committee, with only three of eight Democrats supporting him. He was confirmed in the Senate by a 78-22 margin, with half the Democrats voting for him and half against. Obama voted against Roberts and Alito. Two veteran Republicans -- Grassley and Hatch -- said their votes against Sotomayor represented their first "no" votes for a Supreme Court nominee, and they pointed to changed standards in the Senate.

"I think it's a whole new ballgame, a lot different than I approached it with" Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer," Grassley said in a recent interview. He was referring to President Clinton's two Supreme Court picks, who were confirmed by 96-3 and 87-9 margins, respectively. As expected, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the panel's ranking Republican, voted against Sotomayor.

He was her sharpest questioner during her confirmation hearings. Despite Sotomayor's pledge to follow the law closely, Sessions said, he believed she would not "resist the siren call of judicial activism." The National Rifle Assn. and the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life have urged senators to vote "no" on Sotomayor. Grassley cited his concerns about Sotomayor's support for 2nd Amendment rights today.

Prior to this decade, Supreme Court justices who won confirmation usually had the backing of most of the Senate. Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy all won confirmation by unanimous votes.

Sotomayor would replace retired Justice David H. Souter, who was confirmed by a 90-9 vote in 1990. The one notable exception among the veteran members of the high court was Justice Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed by a 52-48 vote in 1991.

david.savage@latimes.com

mdsilva@tribune.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 4774.story

Video of the Vote
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMmLbQG6 ... r_embedded

Graham is a turncoat.

Dixie

Related:
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-164810.html

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Traitors!! Sickening!!!!

Added to homepage
http://www.alipac.us/article4405.html

IT IS A SAD DAY FOR AMERICA. THIS WOMAN DOES NOT HONOR OUR CONSTITUTION.

Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota suggested that opponents were describing the judge as an activist because they did not like her rulings.

HEY MINNESOTA, you still think you elected the right person?????
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"I'm deciding to vote for a woman I would not have chosen," Graham said. Obama's choice to nominate the first-ever Latina to the highest court is "a big deal," he added, declaring that, "America has changed for the better with her selection."

hey SOUTH CAROLINA thanks for sending this moron back to the senate for another six years.
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It was obvious that this would happen. Sad.