Late into Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings, the NRA not only formally announced its opposition to the nominee but also said it would include senators' votes for and against her in the next election-year rankings.

While the caution could have factored into the Senate Judiciary Committee's nearly partyline vote -- all but one Republican voted against Sotomayor -- it's worth noting that three of the six GOPers to announce their backing of the judge thus far were endorsed by the NRA during their most recent campaigns.

• Sen. Lamar Alexander received an 'A' rating and was endorsed in 2008 against Robert Tuke in Tennessee.

• Sen. Lindsey Graham was rated 'A' and endorsed by the NRA in 2008 against Bob Conley in South Carolina.

• Sen. Mel Martinez was rated 'A' and endorsed by the NRA in 2004 against Betty Castor in Florida. (Martinez is not running for re-election.)

And one newly-minted Democrat, who served his almost five full terms as a Republican, has received the NRA's support in the past but voted for Sotomayor:

• Sen. Arlen Specter was rated 'A' and endorsed by the NRA in 2004 against Joseph Hoeffel in Pennsylvania.

The three other GOP senators who have said they'll support Sotomayor have not received the NRA's praise in recent years:

• The NRA gave Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a 'C+' in 2006 and did not endorse her for election.

• The NRA gave Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a 'C+' in 2008 and did not endorse her for election.

• The NRA gave Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., a 'D+ in 2006 and did not endorse him for election.

A day after the Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit's ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano, the left-leaning Alliance for Justice issued its fourth and final report analyzing Sonia Sotomayor's opinions. The group saved the most controversial cases for last, focusing this time on Sotomayor's constitutional and civil decisions, including Ricci, the gun rights case Maloney v. Cuomo, the voting rights case Hayden v. Pataki and a handful of decisions touching on the issue of abortion. Prior Alliance reports have examined her rulings in criminal law and business and consumer cases.

While the group doesn't officially take positions on nominations, the Alliance's legal experts were quick to come to Sotomayor's defense on Ricci.

"There are two obvious points" making it "hard to see how Ricci would be much of an issue in the confirmation process," said the group's legal director, William Yeomans. Since the Supreme Court majority opinion in the case announced a new standard for interpreting Title XII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Yeomans said, there was no way Sotomayor could have applied it as an appellate judge at the time she heard the case. Yeomans added that the justice she will replace if confirmed, David Souter, ruled with the liberal dissenting judges.

As evidence that Sotomayor does not always side with any one ethnic group, Jennifer Meinig, a researcher with the Alliance, pointed to King v. American Airlines Inc., in which Sotomayor wrote the opinion of a unanimous panel rejecting a claim of racial discrimination brought by two African Americans after they were bumped from a flight.

Continue reading Alliance Report Examines Ricci, Maloney And Other Controversial Cases

Updated at 4:27 p.m.

Rewind 30 years ago to when Sonia Sotomayor was a third-year law student at Yale University, and, according to a friend and former mentee, the 24-year-old already possessed "tremendous powers of persuasion." Catherine Sandoval, now a law professor at Santa Clara University, said Sotomayor "can be a real force. But she is also effective in a collegial way as a listener."

While completing her last year in law school, Sotomayor became a friend and mentor to Sandoval, who was, at the time, a freshman at Yale. The two have kept in touch throughout the years, reconnecting periodically through the "Yale networks," Sandoval said.

Sotomayor was an "analytical, very persuasive" person in those days, Sandoval said, adding that she still sees evidence of those traits in her mentor's opinions on the appellate court.

Sandoval recalls bonding with Sotomayor over not just a common ethnicity -- they're both Hispanic -- but their shared ambitions.

"I knew when I was a young girl growing up in East L.A. that I wanted to be a lawyer," Sandoval said. "She also knew when she was a young girl in the Bronx that she wanted to be a lawyer. We had very similar aspirations and both came from families of very modest means."

Sandoval is one of many friends and associates who have gone public about Sotomayor in recent weeks:

• The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post interviewed Sotomayor's former colleagues from the New York District Attorney's Office.

• The Yale Daily News got in touch with her former classmates.

• The Blog of Legal Times reported on a letter sent to the White House by Sotomayor's former law clerks, and interviewed some of them.

• ABC News contacted Sotomayor's brother, Juan, who expressed anger over the criticism directed toward his sister.

• National Journal's Alexis Simendinger spoke with longtime Sotomayor friend Dawn Cardi for some insight into the nominee's life away from the bench.

Sonia Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic justice and the third woman on the court, but in at least one respect she would not bring diversity to the court. She will, if confirmed, continue a growing pattern of filling the Supreme Court with sitting appellate judges.

At an American Constitution Society discussion yesterday on the Sotomayor nomination, panelists debated the pros and cons of selecting potential justices in the mold of former Chief Justice Earl Warren (see video of the event below). Warren was governor of California before President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated him to the court in 1953.

Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and contributor to National Review Online's Bench Memo blog, pointed out that presidents often look outside the "judicial monastery" when they're initially seeking nominees, but they ultimately settle upon an appellate judge because the circuit bench simply offers the best place for nominees to hone the skills needed for the high court.

Whelan hearkened back to Bill Clinton's flirtation with the idea of nominating then-New York Gov. Mario Cuomo in 1993 before he ultimately decided on Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who at the time was a judge for the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Whelan also noted George W. Bush's botched nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers.

Whelan disparaged the idea of appointing politicians to the court. "The worst idea of all would be to nominate a U.S. senator," he said. "And that's an entirely bipartisan comment."

But New York law professor Cristina Rodriguez disagreed. "It's not just about going outside the judicial monastery," she said. "It's also important to have someone with legislative experience." She added that the court would need just one, not nine, politicians on its bench.

The panelists threw out some names as possible non-judge nominees when or if Obama gets a second go at the Supreme Court, including some who made it onto our long list this time around: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

A panel discussion today hosted by the American Constitution Society grappled with the factors likely to shape how Sonia Sotomayor would perform as a Supreme Court justice. Her judicial background on the appellate court -- as well as her ethnic identity -- framed the debate, with panelists sparring over how much these factors could or should influence her judicial decision-making.

Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, pointed to Sotomayor's extensive tenure on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals as the most appropriate basis to examine her judicial thinking. "The best evidence" of her future rulings can be "drawn from ones she's already made," Henderson said, not "her ethnicity or empathy or gender."

Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy and contributor to the National Review Online Bench Memos blog, isn't so sure Sotomayor's opinions offer the best window into how she could ultimately perform as a jurist on the high court. He said her speeches, most notably the one containing her "wise Latina woman" comment, offer a better glimpse into her philosophy than her written opinions from the bench, in which she is restrained by precedent. Appellate court judges are bound by precedent in a way that high court justices are not, Whelan reasoned.

New York University law professor Cristina Rodriguez agreed with Henderson that Sotomayor's appellate record should be the "most important evidence of how she would be as a judge" but agreed with Whelan that she is constrained by precedent and predicting how she'll rule as a justice based on that record is difficult. "She's going to have much more freedom on the Supreme Court," Rodriguez said. "We don't really know what kind of Supreme Court justice she will be. Most justices are very different at the end of their careers than what people expected them to be at the beginning."

On the issue of "empathy," Henderson noted that Samuel Alito wasn't criticized for saying in his confirmation process that he would be a more sensible jurist because of his immigrant background, and neither was Clarence Thomas when he said that growing up in poverty informed his judging. Henderson also pointed to the fact that Brown v. Board of Education was decided by nine white male justices as proof that race and ethnicity are not predictors of the way a justice will rule.

Rodriguez agreed, arguing that Sotomayor "is no less capable of seeing the other [the white male's] side of a discriminatory claim than a white male is capable of seeing a non-white man's side of a discriminatory case."

Whelan lauded Sotomayor's life story as "inspiring," but, he said, "the challenge is always to make sure that you're not indulging your experience in an improper way."

The panelists, moderated by Slate.com senior editor Dahlia Lithwick, commended Sotomayor's background as a trial court judge and noted that the only current justice with that level of experience is retiring Justice David Souter. "It's a weakness [not to have trial court experience] when you're crafting rules that need to be administered by trial judges," Whelan said. "It's a weakness when you're trying to understand what happened at the trial level."

Liberal and conservative partisans commenced crowing/bellowing on cue this week after President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Everyone knows it's all over but the spinning, but Lefties can take special solace in an odd trend: Liberal high court justices stick to their ideology on the bench while rightward picks have tended to drift to the left over time. Nobody can agree on why.

The poster children most often praised/cursed are Harry Blackmun, William Brennan, Sandra Day O'Connor, David Souter, John Paul Stevens, and Earl Warren -- all of whom were nominated by Republican presidents and went on to side with the liberal bloc on key Court decisions. President Dwight D. Eisenhower ultimately described his appointment of Warren as "the biggest damn-fool mistake I ever made."

Some experts think the trend might be ending, as recent (particularly Republican) presidents take more care to determine their nominees' ideological leanings. "Justices don't stray far when they're a known quantity," said law professor Eugene Volokh at the University of California (Los Angeles).

President Obama has signaled time and again he wants his Supreme Court nominee confirmed by August when Congress goes on recess. In a briefing Tuesday at the White House, senior administration officials reiterated that goal but wouldn't say when they hope the confirmation hearings begin.

Republicans had asked for at least 60 days to review any nominee before hearings begin, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has already rebuffed that request. Still, based on historical trends and estimates by experts that hearings would need two weeks, there appears to be enough time if the hearings take place at the end of July.

In a post a few weeks ago, NationalJournal.com examined timelines for nomination announcements and confirmation hearings dating back to President Ronald Reagan's first nominee, Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981. The average amount of time between nomination and confirmation of a new justice is 80 days. By making his announcement on Tuesday, the president has left 73 days between now and his Aug. 7 deadline.

The longest waiting period was 107 days when President George H. W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas in 1991. In that case, Bush didn't nominate Thomas until July 1, and the summer recess ended up prolonging the process: Thomas wasn't confirmed by the Senate until Oct. 15. The shortest turnaround lasted 50 days, when President Bill Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg in August 1993, just before the congressional recess.

Complete timelines available after the jump.

Continue reading Timing Sotomayor's Senate Confirmation

Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, weighed in on the 1998 nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the 2nd Circuit, according to a clip provided by C-SPAN.

Leahy: "Judge Sonia Sotomayor is just such a qualified nominee, and she is one being held up by the Republican majority, apparently because some on the other side of the aisle believe she might one day be considered by President Clinton for nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, should a vacancy arise."

Nate Silver has a breakdown of how the vote went and notices that current senators approved by a margin of 35 to 11.

With her announcement today as President Obama's choice to replace Justice David Souter, Sonia Sotomayor became the 159th nomination to the Supreme Court, a list that begins with the court's seven original justices and ends most recently with Samuel Alito. Of the previous 158 nominations, 122 were confirmed by the Senate.

Subscribers to CongressDaily can view the complete list here.

From the May 23 issue of National Journal:

As conservative groups mobilize to oppose the next Supreme Court nominee, President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will be hard-pressed to complain if the debate centers not on the nominee's resume but on his or her ideology.

After all, when Obama and Biden served in the Senate, they opposed nominees who, by all accounts, had superior brainpower and impressive credentials. They voted no because of philosophical differences with the president's choices.

Biden set the framework for this approach 22 years ago when President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. As Judiciary Committee chairman, Biden sought to upend the Senate's usual approach to evaluating presidential choices. Many of the major nomination battles in the past had revolved around the perceived personal shortcomings of a candidate, but Biden shifted the spotlight toward the person's ideology.

Subscribers to National Journal can read the full story here.

You may think that most civil rights groups would want President Obama to nominate a Supreme Court justice in the mold of Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Stephen Breyer. But the American Association of People with Disabilities isn't one of them.

The Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of the landmark 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act in several decisions, and both Ginsburg and Breyer joined in unanimous rulings on United States v. Georgia in 2006 and Toyota Motor Manufacturing v. Williams in 2002.

In an interview last week, Andrew Imparato, president and CEO of AAPD, said he disagreed with Obama's campaign-trail characterization of Ginsburg and Breyer as model justices. "My hope is that they can stretch beyond Ginsburg and Breyer and really try to get somebody who is more like a [William] Brennan or Thurgood Marshall, who can be a strong voice for civil rights across the board. Even if it's a lone dissenting voice, I think it's a really important role, and I don't feel like we have that right now on the court."

Imparato says the next court pick is a top priority for his organization, and AAPD will be pushing hard for a Supreme Court nominee who strongly supports disability rights.

The White House confirmed Friday it won't announce a Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice David Souter this week. The administration also signaled that "presidential interviews with prospective candidates are not likely to begin this week," according to a Sunday Washington Post story.

So where does that leave us?

NationalJournal.com examined the timelines of all SCOTUS nominations and confirmations going back to the Reagan administration. In that span, the longest a president waited to fill an immediate or imminent vacancy was 87 days: After Justice Byron White announced his retirement in March 1993, it took President Clinton almost three months to nominate Ruth Bader Ginsburg that June. The shortest? No time at all. On June 17, 1986, President Reagan announced Chief Justice Warren Burger's retirement, William Rehnquist's elevation to chief justice and Antonin Scalia's nomination to fill the vacancy.

A speedy nomination is no guarantee of an easy confirmation. In 1987, Reagan was quick out of the gate to nominate Robert Bork to replace Justice Lewis Powell, taking only five days. That ended up being the longest that a Supreme Court seat went unfilled in this period -- Bork's defeat, the short-lived bid of Douglas Ginsburg and a long confirmation process for Anthony Kennedy added up to 222 days.

The average wait for a nomination, including those that went nowhere, is a little over three weeks. We're now upon the 11th day since Souter announced his retirement May 1. History suggests we have more chatter and rumors to wade through before the real debate can get going -- in the Senate's confirmation proceedings.

Continue reading Waiting For Justice

Richard Nixon was seen talking to portraits of past presidents at the depth of Watergate.

Other presidents have sensed the spirits of long-dead predecessors lurking in the corridors of the White House. But today, as President Obama ponders his first Supreme Court appointment, those portraits and ghosts might be trying to warn him to avoid their mistakes, lest he be haunted as they were by justices gone awry.

No presidential appointment is more important or has more lasting impact on the nation.

And no other appointment has caused more regret.

The examples of justices who surprise and disappoint their presidents are well known and likely to be cited often in coming days. But many people will draw the wrong lessons from the retelling and believe that history is filled with tales of justices who suddenly change their ideologies once they don the robes. That is not what has happened.

Subscribers can read the entire story here.

From National Journal's May 8 issue:

As liberal and conservative lobbyists exchange bitter salvos in anticipation of President Obama's choice to succeed Supreme Court Justice David Souter, Vice President Joe Biden must be experiencing deja vu.

Twenty-two years ago, then-Sen. Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, found himself in the national spotlight when President Reagan nominated Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. The battle over Bork was joined almost the minute he was nominated.

Liberal advocacy groups branded Bork a right-wing extremist far outside the mainstream. Conservatives countered that the Appellate Court judge and former solicitor general had superb credentials and was a powerful advocate for judicial restraint.

Subscribers to National Journal can read the full story here.

In a recent blog post, the Hotline's Jennifer Skalka recalls her experience interviewing (and receiving a subsequent letter from) Justice David Souter while working on a profile of prominent New Hampshire lawyer, Dudley Orr, in December 2002.

Here's an excerpt from her Hotline On Call post:

I requested an interview with the notoriously press averse Souter via his SCOTUS office. Expecting full well that he wouldn't want to talk, I continued with my reporting. Orr, I discovered, was a character. He wore three piece suits routinely, and sports jackets as a more casual look on weekends. He played gin and cribbage regularly with his wife; the loser would deposit $20 in each of the grandchildren's bank accounts. He was beloved across political lines.

And then came the call. I was told Souter would phone me at a particular time on Christmas Eve. It snowed the day of our planned interview. As I drove up Mountain Road en route to the Monitor, leaving enough time to journey carefully through the weather, I marveled that a year out of graduate school, I would have the opportunity to interview a sitting SCOTUS justice. It was -- and is -- one of the miracles of the Monitor. Access to wonderful people and politicians and newsmakers -- even for a neophyte journalist.

Subscribers can read the entire post, including Souter's letter, here.