Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Top Nomination News

• "Sonia Sotomayor is getting her first chance to make an impression on senators who will vote on her nomination to the Supreme Court, with a marathon set of Capitol Hill meet-and-greets that kicks off what could be a long debate," AP reports. "Sotomayor's schedule" today "is packed with roughly half-hour meetings -- known as 'courtesy calls' -- that are as important for the courtly tone they set for the debate as they are for offering a few moments of candid conversation with the nominee."

• Sotomayor continues "to put the finishing touches on a detailed Senate questionnaire in advance of her courtesy calls to Senate leaders today," the Washington Post reports.

• The nominee "probably wouldn't bring a big change to the court's ideological balance, but in at least one area, she would likely make an immediate difference: oral arguments," the Wall Street Journal reports. "If confirmed, Judge Sotomayor would arrive on a high court where conservatives have tended to dominate oral arguments in recent years."

• "Conservatives are demanding that Senate Republicans take a harder line on" Sotomayor, Politico reports. "In a letter to be delivered to Senate Republicans today, more than 145 conservatives -- including Grover Norquist, Richard Viguerie and Gary Bauer -- call for a filibuster of Sotomayor's nomination if that's what it takes to force a 'great debate' over judicial philosophy."

• "The letter was organized by the Manuel Miranda, a former adviser on judicial issues to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee," the New York Times reports. "Mr. Miranda now runs the Third Branch Conference, a coalition of conservatives focused on judges."

• "Most of the 34 of Sotomayor's Yale Law School classmates interviewed for" a Yale Daily News article "attested to her practicality and intelligence both as a student and a jurist."

• The idea for a letter praising Sotomayor signed by 45 of her law clerks "sprang up spontaneously among the clerks, and as soon as the far-flung group could be reached, the letter developed and caught on quickly," the Blog of Legal Times reports.

Commentary

• Richard Cohen argues against the "whiff of elitism-cum-racism emanating from" the description of Sotomayor's background: "Imagine, someone from the projects is a success!"

• "Sotomayor will be joining a high court that's gradually become a kind of extra legislative body -- a nine-person super-Senate graced with the power of the veto, where liberals and conservatives alike turn when they're confounded in the Congress," Ross Douthat contends.

• Bob Herbert hopes "that the hysterical howling of right-wingers against the nomination of" Sotomayor "is something approaching a death rattle for this profoundly destructive force in American life."

• "Conservative leaders have found a constructive way to talk about a potential filibuster that's fully in accordance with Senate tradition," the Washington Times writes. "It's an approach worth considering if Senate Democrats try to ram through the nomination without adequate debate."

• "The irony of the current brouhaha is that the roles are somewhat reversed," Jonah Goldberg maintains. "Conservatives are shouting 'racist,' and liberals are scrambling to explain themselves."

• "It would be racist to suggest that any racial or ethnic group is inherently smarter or more humane than others. But that's not what Sotomayor was getting at" in her "wise Latina woman" comments, Steve Chapman argues.

• "The Republicans are still frozen in fight-or-flight at the precipice of race," Derrick Z. Jackson writes.

• In Politico, former GOP Sen. Rick Santorum explains why he voted for Sotomayor as a circuit court judge but would vote against her now for the Supreme Court.

• The Washington Post charges that some conservatives are using a double standard in comparing Sotomayor to Harriet Miers.

• "Though her personal story is remarkable, a thoughtful and thorough examination of her legal views is required," Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele underscores in Politico.

• The Wall Street Journal publishes Barack Obama's floor statement as a senator in 2005 explaining why he would vote against confirming John Roberts as chief justice.

• Writing in Politico, New York lawyer Hugh H. Mo says that the "best way to view" Sotomayor's "qualifications is through the lens of her time as an assistant district attorney in New York during one of the worst crime sprees in a generation," the Richard Maddicks burglaries and murders in 1981 and 1982.