• The Legal Times reports that Sonia Sotomayor was in New York "with more than a hundred colleagues and friends at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit when the Senate roll call put her over the top for confirmation as the next justice on the Supreme Court."
• USA Today rounds up jubilant reaction from Hispanics, including this moment: "At the moment of Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation as the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court, Carmen Garcia cried, hard."
• "Now comes the hard part," the New York Times reports in an analysis. "The volume and difficulty of the work, and the task of fitting into a storied institution populated by strong and idiosyncratic personalities, has unnerved even judges with distinguished records on lower courts, fancy credentials and ample self-confidence."
• Sotomayor's "background will probably affect her thinking and influence her decisions in ways that were hardly mentioned in the Senate fight," the Los Angeles Times reports as it outlines ways in which Sotomayor brings a unique perspective to the court. For example, "she will be the only justice whose first language is not English. She has had diabetes since childhood -- a medical condition classified as a disability under federal law. She was raised in a Bronx housing project where drugs were more common than Ivy League college success. And the 111th justice is a divorced woman with no children."
• NationalJournal.com compares Sotomayor to her predecessor, David Souter, and asks: "Is there any chance these two tight-lipped jurists could share a propensity for disappointing their supporters?"
Commentary
• The Washington Post cheers Sotomayor's confirmation but is left wondering "what kind of justice" she will be "now that the burdens of precedent are no longer absolute."
• The Wall Street Journal commends Republicans for a confirmation process that "was conducted respectfully and with a cool-tempered focus on her Constitutional philosophy," though it "can't help but contrast her treatment with the way Democrats smeared and filibustered appellate-court nominee Miguel Estrada in 2001."
• "Sonia Sotomayor stands on the verge of making history as the Supreme Court's first Hispanic justice, despite staunch opposition from Republicans who call her ill-suited for the bench," AP reports.
• Senate Majority Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Wednesday night on the Senate floor that the final vote on Sotomayor will be at 3 p.m. today.
• The vote will "likely land somewhere between the fairly bipartisan 78-22 vote that confirmed Chief Justice John Roberts in September 2005 and the much more partisan vote of 58-42 that confirmed Justice Samuel Alito in January 2006," The Hill reports. "Democrats split evenly, 22-22, on Roberts, but only four supported Alito and 40 opposed him."
• "Overwhelming Republican opposition... widens a partisan gulf that has lawmakers voting on ideology rather than qualifications," Bloomberg reports.
• "With the outcome of the Senate's vote preordained, senators of both political parties used a long day and night of debate over President Obama's first Supreme Court nominee to try to advance their larger goals," the Washington Post reports.
• "Democratic senators and leaders of Hispanic organizations sent a message to Republicans" Wednesday: "Their votes on" Sotomayor's "confirmation will matter," NationalJournal.com reports. "'To say that you cannot vote for this qualified Latina to be on the United States Supreme Court sends a message to us as a community that we will not forget,' said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., prompting the crowd -- assembled as part of a rally hosted by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md. -- to erupt in cheers."
• Politico has video from the rally Wednesday.
• "National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Texas) dismissed as 'Democratic cheerleading' the idea that voting against" Sotomayor's confirmation "will negatively impact the standing of his party with Hispanics," the Washington Post reports.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "The Senate on Tuesday began the final leg of Supreme Court hopeful Sonia Sotomayor's 10-week confirmation process with Democrats and Republicans laying down rhetorical markers for a two-day floor debate that will do nothing to change the outcome," Roll Call (subscription) reports.
• AP has video from Tuesday.
• "The Senate is continuing a history-making debate on Sotomayor, dominated by Republican charges that she would bring bias to the court and assertions from Democrats that she's a mainstream moderate," AP reports.
• "Almost 30 lawmakers are expected to take the floor in coming days to criticize the nominee and perhaps lay down a marker in advance of the next Supreme Court vacancy," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• "Nearly three-quarters of GOP senators have lined up against Sotomayor, including John Ensign of Nevada, who said he would vote against her because of concerns that she would not uphold the rights of gun owners or be impartial in rendering decisions," NPR reports. "Arizona's John McCain, who is also from a state with a large Hispanic population, likewise plans to oppose the 55-year-old jurist."
• Keep tabs on which senators have committed to yes or no votes with NationalJournal.com's Vote Tracker.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "As the Senate begins debate today on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor with the outcome assured, the only remaining questions are whether the National Rifle Assn. can claim to have swayed votes against her and whether President Obama can claim a victory for bipartisanship," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• Senators will "begin a highly orchestrated floor debate expected to be long on political posturing but short on substance or suspense," Roll Call (subscription) reports.
• "Democratic Senate leaders are planning to make the vote on Sotomayor the last thing lawmakers do before leaving town for a month-long recess," USA Today reports.
• "Republicans have lined up almost solidly against" Obama's "nominee, taking what strategists in both parties call a steep political risk in opposing Sotomayor, although a handful of GOP senators are siding with Democrats to support her," AP reports.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "On Tuesday, the Senate is expected to take up the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor," The Hill reports. "Senate Republicans have proposed a four-day debate on the nominee and Senate Judiciary Committee ranking Republican Jeff Sessions (Ala.) has called on every Republican senator to review Sotomayor's record and speak at length on the floor. Senate Democratic leaders, however, say that two days should be enough."
• Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., "says he is still on the fence" about Sotomayor, AP reports. "McCain says he is examining Sotomayor's record as an appeals court judge to decide whether she understands the limits to judicial power. He voted against her when she was nominated to the appeals court."
• "Ever since President Barack Obama tapped Sotomayor... to serve as the first Hispanic on the nation's highest court, the nomination has become not only a source of pride among South Florida's Puerto Rican community, but also a platform to flex its political muscle," the Miami Herald reports.
• "The National Rifle Association's threat to punish senators who vote for" Sotomayor "has been met with a shrug by Democrats from conservative-leaning states and some Republicans who are breaking with their party to support her," AP reported on Sunday.
Commentary
• The New York Times charges that the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee who voted against Sotomayor made "flimsy arguments," and hopes that "the vote in the full Senate for Judge Sotomayor will be overwhelming and the rhetoric more high-minded."
• In Politico, Nan Aron, president of the left-leaning Alliance for Justice, says this nomination has made it easier for Obama to pick a more liberal justice next time: "If a small Republican minority is going to oppose a moderate as if she's an unhinged extremist, there should be no political cost to nominating a qualified candidate who is a true progressive."
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced Thursday afternoon that he hoped to begin floor debate on the nomination of" Sonia Sotomayor "on Tuesday as the Senate wraps up work on a series of largely noncontroversial spending and policy bills before the August recess," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "A final vote... will be scheduled for Thursday night, Democratic aides said."
• "Senate Republicans have proposed the idea of a four-day debate on the nominee, with most of their 40 members planning to speak on Sotomayor's fitness for the court," The Hill reports. "But Democrats say no more than two days should be necessary -- and that other Senate business will be on the chamber's to-do list as well."
• "Democratic Senators say their decision about whether to support" Sotomayor's confirmation "is not being swayed by the National Rifle Association's decision to use the vote to evaluate lawmakers," CQ Politics reports.
• "Whether or not the NRA is pulling the strings, the Second Amendment is clearly one of the biggest concerns for Republicans voting against Sotomayor," NationalJournal.com reports. "Nineteen of the 26 Republicans who have already pledged to vote 'nay' have mentioned the Second Amendment, gun rights or, more specifically, Sotomayor's ruling in Maloney v. Cuomo in official remarks or statements explaining their decision."
• In supporting Sotomayor, Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., is breaking with most of his party's Senate leadership, Politico reports.
• Keep tabs on which senators have committed to yes or no votes with NationalJournal.com's Vote Tracker.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "The Senate debate over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor turned bitter Wednesday, after Democrats warned the GOP it would pay a steep price for opposing the judge who would be the first Hispanic justice, and a top Republican charged they were playing destructive racial politics," AP reports.
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., "has become intensely critical of Republican opposition to" Sotomayor, Politico reports.
• "Reid is sick and tired of hearing about Sonia Sotomayor's 'wise Latina woman' remark and her ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano," NationalJournal.com reports. "'How many times do we have to listen to the same speeches on the same brief statements and on the same case?' Reid asked during a press conference" Wednesday.
• "Rounding out next week's agenda will be" Sotomayor's "nomination, which is expected to clear but could take two or more days of floor time," Roll Call (subscription) reports.
• "Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., drew praise from across the country Wednesday for his speech explaining his Senate Judiciary Committee vote for" Sotomayor, McClatchy Newspapers reports.
• Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., "said late Wednesday he has decided not to support the confirmation of" Sotomayor, the Chattanoogan reports.
• Keep tabs on which senators have committed to yes or no votes with NationalJournal.com's Vote Tracker.
Commentary
• The Las Vegas Review-Journal asserts that the Senate Judiciary Committee's GOP members "did the right thing" in voting against Sotomayor, despite threats from Democrats that a "no" vote would hurt them with Hispanics.
• In the San Francisco Examiner, Tim Phillips and Phil Kerpen of the conservative Americans for Prosperity argue that "Sotomayor's utter -- indeed, intentional -- unpredictability" on the bench "is likely to undermine business confidence."
• "Absent a miracle," Sotomayor "will take a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court," writes Doug Bandow, former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, in the American Spectator. "Nevertheless, the Republican minority still has an opportunity to use her nomination to educate the American people about the dangers of politicizing the judiciary."
• After conducting interviews with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Graham, David S. Broder predicts that "we might avert the ugly partisanship of recent confirmation fights."
• Stuart Taylor Jr. notes that the Sotomayor nomination has sparked a debate among conservatives about judicial philosophy.
• "A Senate committee endorsed Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday in a vote that splintered nearly along party lines, signaling that Republicans will not hesitate to oppose the first Hispanic nominee to the nation's highest court when the full Senate decides whether to confirm her next week," the Washington Post reports.
• "After a two-hour debate, the vote was 13-6, with South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham the lone Republican joining all the committee's Democrats," Politico reports. "With the GOP vowing not to filibuster the nomination, the Senate is expected to confirm" Sotomayor "to the high court as early as next week -- one of the few successes of late for the party in power as it struggles with its massive health care agenda."
• The Hill reports that "Sotomayor was not present Tuesday -- she went through four days of questioning two weeks ago."
• "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday reiterated his intention to wrap up the confirmation of" Sotomayor "before the August recess," Roll Call (subscription) reports.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "Two leading Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee announced their opposition to the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor on Monday" -- Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Charles Grassley of Iowa, the New York Times reports.
• Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., also plans to vote no, The Oklahoman reports.
• The Judiciary Committee today "is expected to vote overwhelmingly to back the nomination of" Sotomayor, "and conservatives are mobilizing to use the vote against vulnerable Democrats in next year's elections," McClatchy Newspapers reports.
• Keep track of which senators are committing to yes or no votes with NationalJournal.com's Vote Tracker.
• "In deciding to vote in large measure against Sotomayor, despite near-unanimous feeling that she has the résumé to serve, the GOP is perpetuating the argument that qualifications alone are no longer enough to judge fitness for the court," Politico reports.
• Grassley and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, "said their votes against Sotomayor would be their first 'no' votes on a Supreme Court nominee, and they pointed to changed standards in the Senate," the Los Angeles Times reports. The newspaper quotes Grassley as saying, "I think it's a whole new ballgame, a lot different than I approached it with" Clinton nominees Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, says he will vote against Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation to the Supreme Court in the committee vote scheduled for Tuesday," USA Today reports.
• "South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham is going to feel awfully lonely on the Republican side of the Judiciary Committee dais during Tuesday's" vote on Sotomayor, Politico reports. GOP Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah, Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas -- "all of whom were undecided as of last week -- will all vote no in committee. It's not clear yet if Graham will be the only Republican 'yes' vote on the panel."
• Keep track of which senators are committing to yes or no votes with NationalJournal.com's Vote Tracker.
• "Sotomayor's installment on the Supreme Court is not yet certain, but the new justice's actual seat on the bench is a sure thing," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Like many of the high court's procedures, seat selection falls under a long tradition of seniority. The new justice will take the chair at the far left end of the mahogany bench."
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "The split in the Republican base over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor grew wider Thursday, with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsing her confirmation while the National Rifle Association amped up pressure for senators to vote no," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• On Thursday, Sotomayor met with "Republican Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, John Barrasso of Wyoming and John Ensign of Nevada, who have not said how they will vote," AP reports.
• Ensign "is 'impressed' after meeting for about 45 minutes" with Sotomayor, AP reports. "Ensign spokesman Tory Mazzola says the Republican Nevada senator hasn't decided how he will vote when her confirmation comes to the Senate floor. Still, Mazzola had nothing but compliments for the nominee after Thursday's meeting."
• Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, "said he has not decided if he'll vote" on Sotomayor's confirmation, the Dallas Morning News reports. "'I'm trying to be as deliberative about this as I possibly can,' Cornyn said during a conference call with reporters on Thursday."
• Keep track of which senators are committing to yes or no votes with NationalJournal.com's Vote Tracker.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "The Obama administration says it won't name those who participated in practice sessions with its nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, refusing even to give a clear reason for keeping the information hidden," the Blog of Legal Times reports.
• Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., "said Wednesday that he will vote for" Sotomayor, "breaking with his party's conservative leaders to back President Barack Obama's choice to be the first Hispanic justice," AP reports.
• The Washington Post has video of Graham's Senate floor speech Wednesday.
• "Privately, Republicans are now predicting that Sotomayor may receive upward of 70 votes for confirmation by the time the vote happens the first week of August," Politico reports.
• Keep track of which senators are committing to yes or no votes with NationalJournal.com's Vote Tracker.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "Calling her Judiciary Committee testimony 'evasive, lacking in substance and, in several instances, incredibly misleading,' Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl said he will vote against Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court," ABC News reports. "Kyl, the Senate's No. 2 Republican, will announce his decision on the Senate floor" this morning.
• Two GOP senators announced on Tuesday how they intend to vote, the Washington Post reports. Susan Collins of Maine said she will vote yes and Roger Wicker of Mississippi said he will vote no.
• In North Carolina, Democrat Kay Hagan supports Sotomayor while Republican Richard Burr "isn't ready to commit," the Raleigh News & Observer reports.
• "Several Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are struggling with a sticky political dilemma," Politico reports. "Do they vote 'no,' please the conservative base and send a message that liberal justices will be opposed at every turn? Or do they vote 'yes' and dampen Democratic attacks over their opposition to a nominee who will almost certainly become the first Latina Supreme Court justice?"
• "The abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America endorsed Sotomayor, breaking months of silence on her nomination that stemmed from uncertainty about where the judge stands on the legal underpinnings of a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy," AP reports.
Commentary
• "The bulk of Tuesday's nearly three-minute" Senate Judiciary Committee "hearing was a playground-style argument between" Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., "about which party confirmed the other side's nominees faster," Dana Milbank remarks.
• Sotomayor showed during her hearings that she "does not know the truth about the constitutional law of abortion in our country, or that she is willing -- for whatever reason -- to mischaracterize the matter before a national audience," writes Matthew J. Franck, political science director at Radford University, in an online publication of the conservative Witherspoon Institute.
• "Senate Republicans, divided over whether to confirm Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic justice, aren't planning a drawn-out floor debate on her nomination," AP reports.
• "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell," R-Ky., "said Monday he would not support any effort to block a floor vote on" Sotomayor's nomination "and does not expect any of his fellow Republicans to do so either," CQ Politics reports.
• Sotomayor "responded to written questions from five GOPers on the Senate Judiciary Committee" Monday, but she rarely expanded on the details provided during last week's confirmation hearings," Hotline On Call reports. "And two GOP senators -- Lindsey Graham (SC) and Orrin Hatch (UT) -- apparently declined to take the opportunity to pose additional questions."
• The National Law Journal explores how the six members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who don't have law degrees prepared "to participate in the biggest legal spectacle in the nation."
• Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., "announced Monday that he will vote against Sotomayor's nomination, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports. "Having said last week that he thought Sotomayor was doing a good job before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Thune now says he won't vote for her because she has ruled in the past that the Second Amendment isn't a fundamental right and because he doesn't agree with her opinion on the role of judges."
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• On CNN Sunday, "the two top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee hotly debated the undercurrent of ethnic/racial/identity politics that rippled through four days of the panel's confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor this past week," the New York Times reports. "And on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell," R-Ky., "reiterated his opposition to the judge's confirmation to the Supreme Court."
• "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy accused Republicans Sunday of playing the race card on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor," Politico reports. "'You have one leader of the Republican Party call her the equivalent of the head of the Ku Klux Klan. Another leader of the Republican Party called her a bigot,' the Vermont Democrat said on CNN's 'State of the Union.'"
• "A competent and cautious performance at her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is positioning" Sotomayor "headed for virtually certain confirmation to the Supreme Court," CQ Politics reports.
• "At least three" Sotomayors "were portrayed before the Senate Judiciary Committee at its four-day confirmation hearing last week," the National Law Journal reports. "All three versions... are caricatures born of the political dynamics of modern-day confirmation hearings, which seem to require nominees to disavow all emotions and opinions."
• Roll Call (subscription) reports that Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, became the first GOP senator to oppose her who voted in favor of her confirmation to the appellate bench in 1998. There are seven current Republican senators who voted "yea" at that time.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• Sonia Sotomayor's "path to becoming President Obama's first Supreme Court appointment was enhanced by a two-pronged strategy: During more than 15 hours of questions from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, she revealed little about the type of justice she would be, declining to disclose her views on the most significant and polarizing legal matters working their way through the courts," the Washington Post reports. "In addition, she deflected critics' allegations that her public speeches showed a bias based on her sex and ethnicity, assuring the committee she is a moderate jurist and not a liberal judicial activist."
• "The two sides of" Sotomayor -- "a privately warm, smiling everywoman who likes baseball and eating out, and the serious, well-studied and steely jurist -- both held up under three days of questions from 19 senators," AP reports.
• "The final day of the judge's testimony did not go entirely smoothly," the Washington Times reports. "The National Rifle Association (NRA) came out strongly in opposition to her nomination, and the New Haven, Conn., firefighter who has become the public face of one of her most fiercely debated decisions testified before the panel."
• "Whether or not the cordial ending of three days of grilling will translate into more than a handful of Republican votes for Sotomayor is unclear," the National Law Journal reports. "But confirmation seems assured, as Republicans pledged not to filibuster her nomination and a committee vote is likely to come before the end of July."
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• Sonia Sotomayor "spent Wednesday fending off Republicans' efforts to pin down her views on abortion and gun ownership," the New York Times reports. "In pursuing this line of questioning, Republicans were addressing issues of particular concern to their party's conservative base."
• The National Law Journal also reports on senators' efforts to ask Sotomayor about abortion.
• "As she progressed through the third day of her confirmation hearings, with no sign of a major mishap so far that would derail her approval by a heavily Democratic Senate, Sotomayor relaxed -- yet took no chances," the Washington Post reports. "She joked openly with members of the Judiciary Committee while increasingly avoiding their questions."
• Politico lists five arguments Sotomayor "returned to again and again."
• AP defines some of the legalese that is coming up in her exchanges with senators.
• AP also compares what Sotomayor has said so far compared to what John Roberts and Samuel Alito said during their hearings.
• The Washington Post has excerpted key exchanges between senators and Sotomayor.
• "After three days of testimony, Judge Sotomayor appeared to have made no major mistakes that would jeopardize her confirmation in a Senate dominated by Democrats," the New York Times reports in an analysis. "So both sides are trying to use the Judiciary Committee hearings to define the parameters of an acceptable nomination in case another seat opens up during" Barack Obama's "presidency."
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
Day four of Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings bring with it 12 senators' second round of questioning -- at 20 minutes each -- and then the beginning of outside testimony. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., have each requested more than a dozen witnesses, plus two representatives from the American Bar Association are set to testify. Click here for a list of the witness lists.
On Wednesday, we rounded up some of the best sources for minute-by-minute coverage and commentary.
• "Sonia Sotomayor sought" Tuesday "to reframe critics' portrayal of her as a judge swayed by her gender and ethnicity," the Washington Post reports. "On the second day of her confirmation hearings, she stressed the primacy of legal precedents and distanced herself from her most controversial public remark, saying her line that a 'wise Latina' judge might reach better decisions than a white man was 'a rhetorical flourish that fell flat.'"
• "During eight hours of questioning," Sotomayor "offered views on a range of issues, ranging from support for a right of privacy under the Constitution to 'positive experiences' with cameras in her own court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit," the National Law Journal reports.
• Republicans "say they plan to keep up their questioning of Sotomayor's true feelings on the role of ethnicity and gender in the law at" today's "hearing -- and edged right up to the line of saying that Sotomayor was being dishonest in her answers," Politico reports.
• "For all of the buildup, the second day of her confirmation hearings produced few of the anticipated fireworks as senators moved from opening statements to questions and answers," the New York Times reports. "At times, it had more the feel of a law school seminar about statutes of limitation and strict scrutiny standards."
• "Judge Sotomayor approached the" hearings "as a seasoned advocate," the Times also reports, in an analysis. "She struck a tone of attentive deference, avoided needless argument, said no more than she needed to prevail, stuck almost entirely to uncontroversial points and avoided antagonizing her questioners."
• The Blog of Legal Times has a roundup of photos from Day Two.
• The Washington Post has key excerpts from various exchanges Tuesday.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, will start off day three of Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing.
Eight senators, including Cornyn, are still left to go in the first round of questioning, during which each lawmaker receives 30 minutes. Oklahoma's Tom Coburn is the only other Republican remaining, along with Democrats Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Ted Kaufman of Delaware, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Al Franken of Minnesota.
Specter and Franken should be particularly interesting to watch considering the former's recent party switch and the latter's scant time as a senator.
As is customary in Supreme Court confirmation hearings, the Senate Judiciary Committee will break for a brief closed session to discuss with Sotomayor her FBI check. The open hearings will resume after that, when senators will get a second round of questions, this time for 20 minutes each.
We've rounded up some minute-by-minute coverage and commentary:
• C-SPAN is live-streaming the hearings and providing constant live TV coverage.
• The New York Times is live-blogging the hearings at its Caucus blog.
• ABC News is offering live video coverage and periodic commentary by legal correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg on the blog Legalities.
• PBS is covering the hearings live and also providing streaming video. National Law Journal's Marcia Coyle will provide legal analysis.
• The Washington Post has live video coverage and commentary from its correspondents.
• SCOTUSblog is live-blogging.
• The Federalist Society is hosting an ongoing debate this week among prominent legal experts, including Tom Goldstein, founder of SCOTUSblog and Supreme Court litigator at Akin Gump, and Wendy Long, general counsel of the Judicial Confirmation Network.
• The American Constitution Society is hosting an online symposium of legal experts and law professors about the hearings.
• "Answering criticisms that her heritage and gender will influence her judging, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday that her judicial philosophy is 'simple: fidelity to the law,'" the National Law Journal reports. "She spoke on the first day of a historic confirmation hearing that is likely to result in her becoming the first Hispanic justice -- and third woman -- on the nation's highest court."
• "Democrats portrayed Sotomayor as a role model 'for all Americans,' a seasoned jurist with a modest and restrained approach who, if anything, might balance a court that has swung too far to the right," the Washington Post reports. "Republicans sought to cast doubt on Sotomayor's impartiality, saying her statements and rulings have forecast the activist approach she would take when freed of having to follow precedent."
• "Republican senators, who are outnumbered 12-7 on the committee, focused much of their opening statements on Judge Sotomayor's remarks that a 'wise Latina woman' would make better judgments than a 'white male,' saying they could not vote for a nominee who could not be impartial on the bench," the Washington Times reports.
• Today's "hearing is shaping up as more legal seminar than showdown," Politico reports. "Nothing has emerged that's likely to derail a future Madam Justice Sotomayor, and no one seriously expects anything to in this week's hearings, either."
• Republicans "must tread carefully, balancing their desire to use the hearings to frame a debate over legal philosophies that their constituents want to see with their concern that they do nothing to show insensitivity or disrespect toward the fastest-growing minority group in the country," the Washington Post reports.
• "The session also quickly became a proxy for a larger struggle over the court," the New York Times reports. "At times, it seemed the hearing was devoted more to refighting past battles and setting the stage for future ones, a recognition that barring an unforeseen development, Judge Sotomayor's confirmation seems assured in a Senate with a commanding Democratic majority."
• "The plaintiff in the landmark abortion-rights case Roe v. Wade," Norma McCorvey, "who became an abortion protester in recent years, was among four demonstrators arrested Monday for disrupting" Sotomayor's hearing, AP reports.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
Now the real fun begins. This morning, senators will have their first opportunity to ask Sonia Sotomayor questions, receiving 30 minutes apiece. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., will be the first up, followed by ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.; the questioning will then roughly alternate between the Democratic and Republican members of the committee.
Here's a roundup of some minute-by-minute coverage and commentary:
• As is traditional during Supreme Court confirmation hearings, C-SPAN is live-streaming the hearings and providing constant live TV coverage.
• ABC News is offering live video coverage and periodic commentary by legal correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg on the blog Legalities.
• PBS is covering the hearings live and also providing streaming video. National Law Journal's Marcia Coyle will provide legal analysis.
• The Washington Post has live video coverage and commentary from its correspondents as well.
• SCOTUSblog is live-blogging.
• The Federalist Society is hosting an ongoing debate this week among prominent legal experts, including Tom Goldstein, founder of SCOTUSblog and Supreme Court litigator at Akin Gump, and Wendy Long, general counsel of the Judicial Confirmation Network.
President Obama talks with Sonia Sotomayor on the phone Sunday. Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearings begin today. (Credit: White House)
• "Just back from his trip abroad, President Obama called Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Sunday to wish her luck," The Hill reports.
• The hearings, which begin today, are "only partly about the fate of Sotomayor's nomination, as both sides predict she will win confirmation easily," the Washington Post reports. "The battle over" Obama's "first court nominee is also likely to have broad and long-lasting political implications for the president and both political parties."
• The Post also reports on five senators to watch during the hearings.
• "When a national television audience tunes in to the Senate hearings... it will get a crash course in the law beginning with the perennial three R's: race, religion and Roe," USA Today reports.
• "A nearly century-old battle over what questions can be asked and answered likely will continue with undiminished fervor," the National Law Journal reports. "This battle triggers repeated complaints that the hearings are meaningless or useless because nominees and their supporters on the Senate Judiciary Committee use the shield of judicial ethics to fend off substantive questions by other senators."
• On Sunday, "Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee signaled... that they would question" Sotomayor's "ability to be impartial, based on previous statements she has made about her background," the New York Times reports.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• Sonia Sotomayor "has endured weeks of insults, obnoxious questions and unwelcome drilling into her work as a judge and a lawyer -- and it was all on purpose, essentially a dress rehearsal for her confirmation hearings," AP reports.
• "In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released" today, "47 percent of people questioned would like to see the Senate vote in favor of Sotomayor's confirmation, with 40 percent opposed and 13 percent unsure," CNN reports.
• "More than 1,200 pages of Clinton-era White House communications about" Sotomayor "were withheld from public release by the former president's adviser, a National Archives spokeswoman said," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• The New York Times reports that "National Archives officials determined that the hundreds of pages of other documents were exempt from release under the Freedom of Information Act because the material relates to appointments to federal office and internal decision-making processes."
• "Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are becoming increasingly concerned about Sotomayor's positions on gun rights," the Washington Examiner reports.
• "As conservative interest groups zero in on" Sotomayor's "stances on lightning rod social issues, Senate Republicans are pursuing a separate line of attack pegged to a less polarizing issue: campaign finance regulation," Politico reports.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "Legal experts said" Sonia Sotomayor's "rulings fall within the mainstream of those by Democratic-appointed judges," the Washington Post reports. "But some were critical of her style, saying it comes close to overstepping the traditional role of appellate judges, who give considerable deference to the judges and juries that observe testimony and are considered the primary finders of fact."
• The Post also highlights statements from some of Sotomayor's key rulings.
• "Sotomayor's thin record on the limits of presidential power suggests she will be neither reflexively hostile to broad expansion of a president's authority nor a reliable rubber stamp in support of it," AP reports.
• "The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University law school is completing an analysis of nearly 1,200 rulings by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit," the New York Times reports. "The study found that" Sotomayor "has a slightly higher rate of striking down governmental actions than her appeals court's average rate, but that the gap is small."
• "Former directors of a Latino legal advocacy group have attacked Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions' emphasis on the group's work as a means to criticize" Sotomayor, CQ Politics reports.
• The McClatchy News Service quotes Senate Judiciary Committee member Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., as saying, "I honestly think I could vote for her."
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
This weekend's New York Times Magazine will feature an interview with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in which she discusses the role of women in the courts and the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. Click here to read the full interview. A few highlights:
On Sotomayor's nomination: "I feel great that I don't have to be the lone woman around this place."
On whether criticism of Sotomayor is gender-based: "I can't say that it was just that she was a woman. There are some people in Congress who would criticize severely anyone President Obama nominated. They'll seize on any handle."
On the "wise Latina woman" comment: "I thought it was ridiculous for them to make a big deal out of that. Think of how many times you've said something that you didn't get out quite right, and you would edit your statement if you could. I'm sure she meant no more than what I mean when I say: Yes, women bring a different life experience to the table. All of our differences make the conference better. That I'm a woman, that's part of it, that I'm Jewish, that's part of it, that I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and I went to summer camp in the Adirondacks, all these things are part of me."
On Sotomayor's acknowledgment that she is a product of affirmative action: "So am I. I was the first tenured woman at Columbia."
(Hat tip: Hotline On Call)
• "Conservatives stepped up their criticism of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday, but it was unclear how far Senate Republicans were willing to go to create bumps in what appears to be a smooth road to confirmation for President Barack Obama's first high-court choice," AP reports.
• "Senate Republicans are finalizing their line of attack on" Sotomayor, "casting the nominee as a biased, closed-minded judge who's on the wrong side of gun rights and affirmative action cases," Politico reports. "In other words, they want to fire up the culture war issues heading into next week's confirmation hearings -- and perhaps awaken an apathetic conservative base that has been sluggish in its reaction to the Supreme Court nominee."
• "A senior Senate GOP aide who worked closely with the Bush administration during the 2005 and 2006 nominations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito said Republicans haven't been able to find one galvanizing issue around which to build opposition," Roll Call (subscription) reports.
• The New York Times examines the new roles members of the Senate Judiciary Committee members will be taking in next week's confirmation hearings.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• As Sonia Sotomayor "moves through the confirmation process," she "has explained very little about one facet of her legal life: Sotomayor & Associates, the solo law practice she ran out of her Brooklyn apartment for several years in the 1980s," the New York Times reports.
• "Finally joining the Senate, Democrat Al Franken envisions playing the 'people's proxy' during" Sotomayor's confirmation "hearings. Franken, awaiting 'an awfully emotional' Tuesday when he is sworn in, is joining the Senate Judiciary Committee," AP reports.
• Senate Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., "said Monday that he wants to find out whether" Sotomayor "would let racial bias affect her decisions as a justice," AP also reports.
• Sessions also said Monday that "his party might throw up procedural roadblocks to delay next week's planned confirmation hearing," CQ reports.
• But Roll Call (subscription) reports that "earlier rumors of GOP-led delay tactics to stall" Sotomayor's "nomination now appear all but dead."
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
There's Sonia Sotomayor's 17 years on the federal bench and then there's her judicial philosophy. The White House has continually touted the former as one of the main reasons to confirm her. The Republicans have taken issue with the latter, claiming that she's a "judicial activist" who embodies President Obama's liberal interpretation of the role of the courts.
Chapter 4 of the 2005 book "Advice and Consent," by Stony Brook University political science professor Jeffrey Segal and Northwestern law professor Lee Epstein, examines these two factors -- qualifications and ideology -- in the context of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Robert Bork nominations. The following passage is excerpted here as part of the Ninth Justice's ongoing book series:
Virtually from the day George W. Bush nominated Janice Brown to the all-important D.C. Circuit, controversy swirled around her. "Powerful liberal groups," to use Orrin Hatch's phrase, opposed her at least in part because, as a California Supreme Court justice, she had upheld restrictions on abortion rights and opposed affirmative action. Overall, they said, she was "even further to the right than the most far-right justices now sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas." Liberal interests, along with some senators, also asserted that she was unsuited for office. ...
The Senate eventually confirmed Brown by a 56-43 vote -- but two years after Bush initially nominated her. She was the target of a Democratic filibuster that ended only after moderate members on both sides of the aisle drafted a compromise that enabled her confirmation.
Clearly, Brown's political values, not to mention her potential as a Supreme Court nominee, energized opposition from prominent liberal interest groups, which in turn lobbied senators to oppose her. But questions about her professional merit may have played a role too. In other words, all the factors we have considered -- qualifications, partisanship, and ideology -- probably contributed to the long delay and, ultimately, to the divided vote.
But was it merit or politics that exerted the greater influence? That is a hard question to answer for lower court nominees because the Browns are relatively few and far between. The overwhelming majority of lower court nominations that reach the Senate's floor attain consensual confirmation.
But this is not true of candidates for the Supreme Court. Prior to the 1900s, the Senate rejected twenty of eighty-five candidates. And while senators' votes over most nominees since the mid-twentieth century have been unanimous or nearly so, of the 2,451 votes we examined, 378 were nays, or on average about 14.8 per nominee. Nor was dissensus wholly uncommon. In fifteen of the twenty-six cases the candidate caused some degree of division among the senators.
Continue reading How Nominee Qualifications, Ideology Affect Senators' Votes.
• "Colin Powell stuck up for Sonia from the block on Sunday, labeling as bogus the 'reverse racist' charges aimed at Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor," the New York Daily News reports. "Powell, who's from the same South Bronx neighborhood as Sotomayor, said the first Hispanic woman nominated to the high bench should be confirmed in Senate hearings beginning later this month."
• RealClearPolitics.com has the transcript of Powell's interview with John King on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.
• AP reports that Powell "noted that Obama had a significant advantage with Hispanics and African-Americans in the November elections. He criticized Republicans who are not elected to office and 'immediately shout racism' against Sotomayor."
• AP reported over the weekend that the "civil rights group on whose board" Sotomayor "served filed racial bias lawsuits over employment examinations that resemble" those at the heart of Ricci v. DeStefano. "The case unfolded as Sotomayor chaired the organization's board of directors' litigation committee, although there is no evidence that she had any role in the group's decision to participate in the lawsuits, or in formulating or drafting any of their legal arguments."
Commentary
• "A week before her Senate hearings, Republicans are floundering in their efforts to trip up" Sotomayor, "unable to find an effective message about why she's not fit to serve," AP writes in an analysis.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "Republicans scouring Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's affiliation with a Latino advocacy group contend that documents released Wednesday show she played an active role in an organization they consider radical," CQ reports.
• "The 350-plus pages of material offer little evidence about Sotomayor's role in the cases and causes the organization, now known as LatinoJustice PRLDEF, took up while she served on its board from 1980 until 1992," AP reports.
• "Sotomayor has concluded all her requested meetings with senators so far, according to the White House and the Senate Judiciary Committee," NationalJournal.com reports.
• Sotomayor "has recused herself at least 141 times since becoming a judge in 1992," the New York Times reports. "In many of those cases, she has told Senate investigators, her withdrawals were prompted by simple reasons: one of the lawyers was a friend; a former law clerk was involved; or she had represented a party in private practice. Only once, in a case from 1997, did her explanation say, 'I had personal knowledge regarding the claims.' The information the judge gave to the Senate offered no clue as to what that knowledge might have been."
• AP reports on the benefits Democrats may see with incoming Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota, "even though Franken has not said outright that he will support Sotomayor."
• "The US public may attend hearings on" Sotomayor's confirmation -- "but not with weapons or clothing bearing profanity, the Senate Judiciary Committee said Wednesday," Agence-France Presse reports.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• Senate Judiciary Committee member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Tuesday that "he did not expect" the Supreme Court's reversal of the Second Circuit's Ricci v. DeStefano case "to play a significant part in his decision-making about" Sonia Sotomayor's "fitness to serve on the nation's high court," the Des Moines Register reports.
• Incoming Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., "said he had been told his assignments would include the Judiciary Committee, a role that would put him immediately in the thick of confirmation hearings over" Sotomayor, AP reports.
• "Latino Justice PRLDEF sent the" Senate Judiciary Committee late Tuesday "more than 350 pages of documents from the 12 years Sotomayor spent on its board, opening what could be an ugly new chapter in the debate over confirming the federal appeals court judge as the first Hispanic justice," AP also reports.
• On Tuesday, "the left-leaning Alliance for Justice issued its fourth and final report analyzing" Sotomayor's opinions, NationalJournal.com reports. "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."
• "The Supreme Court's unusual order Monday delaying a decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and setting it for re-argument Sept. 9 may introduce more pressure on the Senate to confirm" Sotomayor "and have her on the bench by then," the Blog of Legal Times reports.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "Foes of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor celebrated the high court's reversal of her decision in a reverse discrimination case," AP reports. "The 5-4 ruling Monday... is unlikely to derail Sotomayor's nomination -- and it may not even sway a vote."
• "The Supreme Court's rejection of a decision against white firefighters endorsed by" Sotomayor "gives Republicans a renewed chance to attack her speeches and writings but is not expected to imperil her confirmation to the high court, political and legal sources said" Monday, the Washington Post reports.
• Supporters of Sotomayor "said Monday's decision changed the law and thus did not reflect negatively on the decision she participated in," the New York Times reports. "Critics asserted that the appeals court's approach had not been fully endorsed by any justice."
• "White House officials had put in place a plan to deal with the ruling, which they clearly expected. One of their planned talking points was to point out that retiring Justice David H. Souter, whose slot Sotomayor would take, joined the dissent in backing her ruling," the Washington Post reports. "'I think its going to be hard for people to explain why this really should be a confirmation issue for her,' [a] senior White House official said."
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "As eyes across America focus on New Haven and await a potentially landmark Supreme Court decision today on" Ricci v. DeStefano, "the firefighters' promotion case, it's all old news in the city firehouses," the New Haven (Conn.) Register reports.
• "A reversal by the Supreme Court that includes very critical remarks about the lower court ruling could be used as ammunition by some senators who don't want to see" Sonia Sotomayor confirmed, Fox News reports.
• AP reports on Justice David Souter's last day on the Supreme Court.
• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Sunday "the Senate Judiciary Committee needs to examine the materials from the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, now known as LatinoJustice PRLDEF," AP reports.
• "Senate Republicans can be expected to criticize the Sotomayor nomination throughout the recess," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "In particular, Members will speak out against her opinions on gun rights, affirmative action programs and the use of foreign and international laws in the United States, while making the case that her written statements, rulings and speeches 'show an out of the mainstream view of the role of a judge,' according to recess documents."
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• Sen. Jeff Sessions went further in his critique of Sonia Sotomayor on Thursday, "accusing her of relying too heavily on international law in her opinions, which he said raised doubts in his mind about how she would interpret the Constitution as a member of the Supreme Court," the New York Times reports.
• "A coalition of more than 100 conservative activists has called on Senate Republicans to delay a final vote on" Sotomayor "until the fall," The Hill reports.
• "Sotomayor was the stated topic of conversation during a panel discussion" Thursday "among four major conservative organizations, but the focus remained largely on President Obama," NationalJournal.com reports.
• "The fervor" of conservative criticism over this nomination "may not be just about Judge Sotomayor," the New York Times reports. "Those emotions, say people who have followed the confirmation wars, are often fueled by the sense of grievance among conservatives and Republicans who say their judicial nominees have been treated unfairly and, sometimes, disrespectfully."
• Reporting on the Supreme Court's decision Thursday ruling strip searches in public schools unconstitutional, the Los Angeles Times notes that Sotomayor has taken a "similarly strong stand against strip-searches. In 2004, she voted to uphold a suit against several Connecticut officials who had authorized the strip-search of two young girls at a juvenile detention center."
Commentary
• On Slate.com, Washington lawyer and Duke law professor Walter Dellinger examines one ruling handed down by the Supreme Court Thursday that he says may have been decided differently if Sotomayor had been on the bench.
• In Roll Call (subscription), the National Senior Citizens Law Center's Simon Lazarus charges that Republican senators are in line with conservative advocacy groups in wanting to "delay, obstruct, strain for excuses to paint candidates as extreme and, wherever possible, block confirmation."
• "All ears now are perked for the voice of judicial activism, but how many of us have ever actually heard it speak?" asks author David Lebedoff. "I have, once, up close and personal, from my seat in the second row of the visitors' bench in the Supreme Court chamber. And believe it or not, the voice belonged to Chief Justice John Roberts."
Updated at 10:26 a.m. on June 25.
• Sonia Sotomayor turns 55 today. The White House held a birthday party for her Wednesday evening.
• Bloomberg News reports on the ripple effects of the New Haven, Conn., discrimination case Ricci v. DeStefano in the city's Dixwell Fire Station and elsewhere.
• "The day after Senate Republicans launched their most aggressive effort yet targeting" Sotomayor, "a handful of Democrats took to the Senate floor to push back," Politico reports.
• "Senate Republicans said Wednesday they would press" Sotomayor "on gun rights, a politically divisive issue that they hope could weaken Democratic support for the Supreme Court nominee," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., on Wednesday "delivered a Senate floor speech announcing why he will vote against" Sotomayor's nomination, the Kansas City Star reports.
• Brownback "became the third Republican senator to announce plans to vote against" Sotomayor "regardless of what occurs in her confirmation hearing," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.
• Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., "said he's keeping an open mind on whether to support" Sotomayor's nomination, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports. "But he's sounding like someone who won't vote for her."
• The New York Times reports on a 1998 case that sheds some light on Sotomayor's stance on the death penalty.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "A half-dozen Democratic and Republican leaders sparred throughout the day Tuesday, turning the Senate floor into something of a preconfirmation hearing on" Sonia Sotomayor, the Washington Times reports.
• "Senate Republicans on Tuesday unveiled a new narrative ahead of" Sotomayor's "confirmation hearings, questioning her commitment to constitutional guarantees on the right to keep and bear arms and equal treatment under the law regardless of race or gender," AP reports.
• Senate Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said "Sotomayor has done 'extensive work' for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, an organization he said is 'clearly outside the mainstream of [the] American approach to matters' and 'has taken some very shocking positions with respect to terrorism,'" CQ reports.
• "Republicans also remained adamant that if they do not have enough time to review Sotomayor's judicial record before her hearings begin in mid-July, they will push to have them delayed," Roll Call (subscription) reports.
• "None of" the Republican "lines of attack are new, but the use of Senate floor time suggested that Republicans are trying to create some sense of unity within the party -- and perhaps rally conservative activists -- leading up to the July 13 confirmation hearings," Politico reports.
• NationalJournal.com has video and speech excerpts from Tuesday.
• "In a press conference" Tuesday, "Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., underscored an increasingly familiar Democratic line: that" Sotomayor "would bring exceptional qualifications -- as well as ethnic diversity -- to the court," NationalJournal.com reports.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• Senate Republicans have started "focusing their critique of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, readying a series of speeches to illustrate conservative discomfort with" her, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., "and other Judiciary Republicans will take aim at" Sotomayor's "position on gun rights, the role of 'empathy' in her rulings as a federal judge, and whether she has allowed foreign laws to inform her decisions in the past," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Republicans will also focus their critiques of Sotomayor on her involvement in the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund."
• The Washington Times profiles Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
• "As president, Obama avoided much talk about diversity even while choosing the most diverse Cabinet in history: He publicly justified each nominee on his or her individual merits, not race or background," the Boston Globe reports. "With his nomination of" Sotomayor, "however, Obama has sounded some very different notes."
• Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., will meet with Sotomayor today, AP reports.
Commentary
• Stanley Fish describes a recent panel discussion he attended, which examined the empathy standard in the context of Sotomayor's nomination.
• "Sotomayor's resignation last week from the all-women's Belizean Grove club raises questions about what constitutes an elite and exclusionary group and whether any public official should belong to one," remarks columnist Carol Hymowitz on Forbes.com.
• Ed Whelan looks at a New York Times article from Monday about the relationship between Judge José Cabranes and Sotomayor.
• "Nearly a month after President Barack Obama picked her for the Supreme Court, Republican senators say Sonia Sotomayor isn't serving as the political lightning rod some in their party had hoped she would be," Politico reports.
• The New York Times reports on the "30-year relationship" between Sotomayor and her mentor, Judge José A. Cabranes. The relationship was "first as protégé and mentor, later as often-opposing judges on the same court." In many ways, it has "shaped the career that led Judge Sotomayor to her own nomination to the Supreme Court."
• "While Judge Sotomayor has occasionally made statements outside court that conservatives find objectionable, it is far from clear that her judicial record supports the accusation that she is an activist," the Times reported on Friday. "Several empirical studies have concluded that she is not particularly prone to overriding policy decisions by elected branches."
• "Sotomayor resigned Friday from an elite all-women's club after Republicans questioned her participation in it," AP reported Friday. "Sotomayor said she resigned from the Belizean Grove to prevent the issue from becoming a distraction in her confirmation hearings."
Top Commentary
• In Slate, lawyer and Duke law professor Walter Dellinger discusses which Supreme Court cases from this term will play a role in Sotomayor's hearings.
• "Sotomayor's confirmation will provide inspiration for young Latinos to dream big. But we must tread lightly," Sarita E. Brown, president of a Latino education organization, cautions at Inside Higher Ed.
• In the Washington Times, Charmaine Yoest, president of the right-leaning Americans United for Life, contends that Sotomayor "is worse than Justice [David] Souter -- reading a 'fundamental right' to abortion into the Constitution."
• Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., "complained again" Thursday "that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has not given the committee enough information to weigh her candidacy," CQ reports. "Sessions appeared to be laying the groundwork for possible concerted Republican procedural opposition to the July 13 start date for Sotomayor's confirmation hearing."
• "Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., rejected a new Republican demand" Thursday "to delay the confirmation hearings," CongressDaily (subscription) reports.
• Both Sessions and Leahy "made a bipartisan request Thursday for more of" Sotomayor's "records from the Puerto Rican legal aid group where she was a member for 12 years," Dow Jones Newswires reports.
• Senate Judiciary Committee member John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Thursday "he will use hearings on" Sotomayor's nomination "to ask whether she intends to be a justice 'for all of us, or just for some of us,'" AP reports. Cornyn said she "must explain whether she believes in colorblind justice in light of a 2001 speech in which she said she hoped a 'wise Latina' usually would reach better decisions than a white man without similar life experiences."
• "In visits with 71 senators during the past two weeks," Sotomayor "has essentially begun the first round of the confirmation process by previewing her answers to some of the questions senators are likely to ask," USA Today reports.
• "The full political implications of President Obama's selection of" Sotomayor "won't be clear for some time. But if history is any indication, senators' questioning and votes in the forthcoming confirmation hearings could play a role in their re-election bids," NationalJournal.com reports.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
In NationalJournal.com's previous excerpt of The Next Justice, by Princeton provost Christopher Eisgruber, a case was made for the confirmation process as a chance for senators to understand nominees' judicial philosophy more deeply, not to put them on the spot about their records. In Chapter 9, "How To Change The Hearings," Eisgruber goes a step further, arguing that senators should say up front what they know about a nominee and what they want to find out.
If senators can investigate nominees on the basis of their records and reputations, then why should they have to testify? They should not, answers Benjamin Wittes of the Washington Post. Wittes has recommended that the Senate do away with the practice of interrogating nominees. He writes that the hearings "almost invariably prove an embarrassing spectacle that yields minimal information." In his view, "the Senate generally votes on nominees with a rough sense of who they are," but not because of their testimony: "The nominees' testimony added virtually nothing to our understanding of these people." Wittes accordingly proposes that the Senate should "vote on a nominee on the basis of his or her record and the testimony of others."
This bracing suggestion has something to be said for it. Wittes is right about some key points: Senators, like presidents, can usually develop a good sense of a nominee's judicial philosophy on the basis of his or her record and reputation; the nominee's testimony has rarely added much to this understanding; and the hearings have degenerated into embarrassing spectacles. It is hard to believe, though, that Americans today would be satisfied with a process in which Supreme Court nominees were confirmed or rejected without first being questioned about their views.
Continue reading 'The Next Justice': The Next Step For Hearings.
• Per the White House, Sonia Sotomayor is meeting with the following senators today: Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Bob Corker, R-Tenn., Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
• Sotomayor "and senators who will vote on her confirmation are engaged in a careful conversation about where she stands on hot-button issues like abortion and gun rights," the AP reports. "You probably won't hear any of it, though, since the exchange is taking place in code."
• "Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., announced his backing for" Sotomayor "in a floor speech" Wednesday, NationalJournal.com reports. "The senator also discussed a letter he sent to Sotomayor this week that asks for her views on the court's deference to congressional fact-finding when evaluating legislation."
• CQ reports that Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., is going to deliver a "series of floor speeches outlining" conservatives' vision of what the courts' role should be. "Sessions is going to deliver such speeches periodically while the nomination of Sotomayor... is pending. But it remains to be seen whether his speeches will resonate with a public that, in polls, usually has trouble naming very many of the nine justices on the Supreme Court."
• "Conservatives and liberals, beware: television ads attacking" Sotomayor -- "or even supporting her -- may undermine public support for the court itself," the Washington Post reports. "That's the word from researchers at Ohio State University, who studied the reaction to heated ads accompanying the confirmation battle over Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. in late 2005."
• A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that half the public said Sotomayor is "qualified for the post, versus just 13 percent who said she's not qualified," the Journal reports. "That's equivalent to numbers in November 2005 for" Alito, "who was subsequently confirmed to the court."
• And a New York Times/CBS News poll shows that Sotomayor is "still widely unknown to the public," the Times reports. "A majority of people surveyed, 53 percent, said they did not know enough about Judge Sotomayor, who would be the first Hispanic justice, to say whether she should be confirmed."
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
Continuing NationalJournal.com's occasional series on books about the confirmation process, we've pulled out some uniquely applicable portions of a new book released this month, The Next Justice, by Princeton provost Christopher Eisgruber.
Eisgruber, a former New York University law professor and clerk for Justice John Paul Stevens, argues in the book that, contrary to popular belief, senators should not use the hearings to "interrogate" judicial nominees about their records, since the heavy lifting on researching nominees' records should have been done earlier. Instead, he says, the hearings should be an opportunity for senators to "refine their understandings, to describe their view of the candidate's judicial philosophy, and to convince the public of that view's validity."
The following excerpt is from Chapter 8, "Should The Senate Defer?" An excerpt from Chapter 9 will follow tomorrow.
Although questioning the nominee might be the most obvious way for senators to assess his or her judicial philosophy, hearings have been strikingly ineffective for that purpose. With the singular exception of the Bork hearings, Senate questions to nominees have consistently failed to produce illuminating information. Senators and their staffs have demonstrated tremendous ingenuity in crafting questions designed to break free from the "subtle minuet" of the confirmation hearings, but their efforts have failed. That is not the senators' fault; no question can compel an unwilling nominee to disclose his or her judicial philosophy. So we seem to be at an impasse: senators have an obligation to assess a nominee's judicial philosophy, but no set of questions can compel a nominee to disclose his or her philosophy. What are senators to do?
Continue reading Book Excerpt: 'The Next Justice'.
Updated at 10:20 a.m. on June 17.
• Per the White House, Sonia Sotomayor is meeting with the following senators today: Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Robert Bennett, R-Utah, Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Jim Webb, D-Va.
• "When the curtain goes up on" Sotomayor's "confirmation hearing next month, the stars of the show will be the nominee and the 19 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee," the National Law Journal reports. "But this production is scripted mostly by a handful of Republican and Democratic lawyers on Capitol Hill."
• "What cases, other than the already divisive Ricci v. DeStefano, will come to the fore during Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings? NationalJournal.com polled several Supreme Court observers for their take on this question, and on which Judiciary Committee Republican will be the toughest questioner."
• "Sotomayor expressed skepticism in March 2003 about the expanded government surveillance powers in the USA Patriot Act, citing what she referred to as its broader authority 'to impose nationwide wiretaps with little judicial supervision' and to monitor Internet use in search of terrorists," the New York Times reports.
• "Many conservatives opposed to" Sotomayor's nomination "have argued that she is opposed to gun rights, a view based largely on a New York case in which she took part this year," the Times also reports. "But in an opinion a few weeks ago, in a Chicago gun-control case, a panel of conservative appellate judges said Judge Sotomayor and her colleagues on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had gotten it right."
• The Blog of Legal Times reports on a speech Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., made Tuesday in which he compared the Sotomayor opposition to that of Thurgood Marshall's nomination to the Supreme Court.
• CQ reports on the same speech, looking at how Democrats could use a case the Supreme Court is handing down soon about the Voting Rights Act.
• "The left-leaning Alliance for Justice released a report" Tuesday promoting the nominee's "law-and-order bona fides," NationalJournal.com reports. "The report, which examines dozens of criminal law cases from throughout her judicial career, concludes that Sotomayor 'has more experience in criminal law than any of the justices with whom she will sit if she is confirmed.'"
• The group also "promises new studies of Sotomayor's record in coming weeks," the Washington Post reports.
• Per the White House, Sonia Sotomayor is meeting with the following senators today: Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., Thomas Carper, D-Del., Thad Cochran, R-Miss., Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Tom Udall, D-N.M.
• Sotomayor "on Monday defended her membership in an all-female networking club, telling senators... that the group did not discriminate in an inappropriate way," the New York Times reports. "Sotomayor made the remarks in a cover letter for 10 documents the White House submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee."
• Politico reports that those documents include "additional information and documentation related to her tenure on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, as well as details of a couple of subsequently overturned criminal sentences she imposed."
• Judiciary Committee Republicans wanted more on Sotomayor's work with the defense fund, but she "said she could not find notes or drafts for the speeches senators asked about," the Washington Times reports.
• White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett argues that "critics are holding" Sotomayor "to a 'double standard,'" the Washington Post reports.
• "Obama fired a Bush-era inspector general last week despite the administration's use of the former prosecutor as an adviser in Sotomayor's nomination," the Washington Times reports.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "When Sonia Sotomayor goes before the Senate next month for her Supreme Court confirmation hearing, the questioning is likely to focus on her work as a civil rights advocate in the 1980s as much as on her nearly two decades on the federal bench," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• The New York Times examines some property rights cases that may come up in Sotomayor's confirmation hearings.
• "With less than a month before" the hearings, "the White House is trying to quietly guide what staffers describe as an unusually broad network of law enforcement organizations, liberal allies, legal officials, Latino groups and women's organizations that want to see her confirmed," the Washington Post reports.
• Politico discusses the "dos and don'ts" for a candidate facing the Senate Judiciary panel.
• On Sunday's "Face The Nation," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Republicans are "reserving their right to filibuster" Sotomayor's nomination, The Hill reports.
• NationalJournal.com reports on how the Sotomayor nomination could shed some light on the challenges facing Obama in the next high court vacancy.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "Judge Sonia Sotomayor once described herself as 'a product of affirmative action' who was admitted to two Ivy League schools despite scoring lower on standardized tests than many classmates, which she attributed to 'cultural biases' that are 'built into testing,'" reports the New York Times. "Those comments were among a trove of videos dating back nearly 25 years that shed new light on Judge Sotomayor's views."
• "Sotomayor told a senator Thursday that she would follow a historic ruling affirming Americans' right to own guns for self-defense, but pro-gun activists said they still believe she'd work to limit gun rights if confirmed for the high court," the AP reports.
• Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., "accused Republicans Thursday of engaging in a 'Machiavellian delay' to buy time to dig up dirt on" Sotomayor, Politico reports. Republican Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., "shot back that senators were sounding like 'squabbling spouses' and should 'stop calling each other names.'"
• "Republicans may have a window of opportunity to turn public opinion against" Sotomayor, "but a new poll finds that such a campaign could hurt their party's already weak standing with Americans, especially Hispanics, the nation's fastest-growing voter group," McClatchy Newspapers reports.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• The Blog of Legal Times reports on the information that Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans have asked Sonia Sotomayor to submit. The letter they sent yesterday asks "whether the questionnaire left out any other documents from her board membership. It also asks for copies of speeches, of law review articles that she edited, and of memoranda related to various court committees."
• The New York Times runs transcript excerpts from videos Sotomayor has appeared in over the last 25 years that she has given to the judiciary committee.
• "After a sit-down" with Sotomayor yesterday, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wisc., "came out with a statement that's somewhat less than a rousing endorsement," Politico reports.
• "A panel discussion" yesterday "hosted by the American Constitution Society grappled with the factors likely to shape how" Sotomayor "would perform as a Supreme Court justice," NationalJournal.com reports.
Commentary
• "Her opinions and speeches suggest that her views about race, multiculturalism and identity politics are more nuanced, complex and provocative than either her critics or her supporters have allowed," George Washington law professor Jeffrey Rosen writes on Time.com. "And for that reason, if confirmed, she could influence the racially charged issues the Supreme Court will confront over the next few decades in unexpected ways."
• "To hear both critics and defenders talk about the fitness of" Sotomayor "for the Supreme Court, you'd think the most successful Supreme Court justices had been warm, collegial consensus-builders. But history tells a different story," Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman asserts in the New York Times. "Measured by their lasting impact on Constitution and country, many of the greatest justices have been irascible, socially distant, personally isolated, arrogant or even downright mean."
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• Per the White House, Sonia Sotomayor will meet today with Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Sam Brownback, R-Kan., Kent Conrad, D-N.D., Russell Feingold, D-Wis., John Kerry, D-Mass., Carl Levin, D-Mich., Joe Lieberman, I/D-Conn., Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Jim Webb, D-Va.
• "After consulting closely with the White House, Senate Democrats announced Tuesday that hearings on" Sotomayor's nomination "would begin on July 13, infuriating Republicans who said that they had been blind-sided and that the timetable would recklessly short-circuit the review process," the New York Times reports.
• Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., "may have squandered whatever goodwill he'd developed with" new ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., "with the way he went about announcing the start date for Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing," CQ reports.
• "Republicans were blindsided by Leahy's announcement but cognizant that they have few options short of moving to block votes on Sotomayor or hold up Senate business -- both politically unpalatable choices -- to delay the timetable," the AP reports. "Instead, they complained about the schedule and warned they would press their argument."
• "The GOP is still debating how to make" the "case against a nominee who, barring a disqualifying revelation, is expected to emerge from her Senate review as the newest justice," NPR reports. "But consensus is emerging over how to use Sotomayor's confirmation process -- and its three or four days of televised hearings -- as a jumping-off point to appeal to the moderate and independent voters whom the party has been rapidly shedding."
• "A legal counsel for a top Senate Democrat has been sending around" an e-mail that "seems to be the source for" the claim by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., "that Republicans plan to shut down Judiciary Committee business in protest of the accelerated Sotomayor timetable," Politico reports.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• Although Sonia Sotomayor's "critics portray the Supreme Court nominee as a liberal activist, her colleagues and legal opponents in the early 1980s draw a picture of her as a zealous prosecutor whose experiences combating crime have made her, according to experts who have studied her legal decisions, something of a law-and-order judge, especially when it comes to police searches and the use of evidence," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• "Obama may have broken with history by nominating a Latina to the Supreme Court, but in another respect he followed the path of almost every president in modern times who has successfully placed a justice: he chose a nominee groomed in an Ivy League university," the New York Times reports.
• Politico has video of Sotomayor walking through the Capitol on crutches after breaking her ankle Monday.
• CNN.com reports that Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., signed Sotomayor's cast.
• Sototomayor would be the first high court justice "with type 1 diabetes. Sotomayor's health -- and her openness about her chronic illness -- has become a hot topic," the Miami Herald reports.
• NationalJournal.com reports on the similarities and differences between Sotomayor's potential questioning on Ricci v. DeStefano and John Roberts' handling of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld in 2005.
• The White House reports Sotomayor is meeting with the following senators today: Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Roland Burris, D-Ill., Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Bob Casey, D-Pa., Jim DeMint, R-S.C., Mel Martinez, R-Fla., Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Richard Shelby, R-Ala.
Commentary after the jump.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• The National Law Journal reports on recent studies about judicial activism and applies them to Sonia Sotomayor's judicial record.
• "For the first time, the Supreme Court would include two minority judges, but ones who stand at opposite poles of thinking about race, identity and opportunity," the New York Times reported on Sunday. "Judge Sotomayor and Justice" Clarence Thomas "have walked parallel paths and yet arrived at contrary conclusions, not only on legal questions, but on personal ones, too."
• "Former first lady Laura Bush says she's pleased that President Barack Obama nominated a woman for the Supreme Court," AP reports.
• "The 'racist' label certainly isn't sticking, but partisan feelings still run hot when voters are polled about" Sotomayor, Politico reports.
• Roll Call (subscription) reports on one group's efforts to lobby for Sotomayor's confirmation by way of Facebook.
• The New York Times reports on Sotomayor's income and spending.
• Gun rights advocates are preparing to get involved in the Sotomayor debate, CQ reports.
Commentary after the jump
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "The White House first contacted Judge Sonia Sotomayor about the possibility of being nominated to the Supreme Court three days before Justice David H. Souter announced his retirement and stayed in touch with her nearly every day afterward, according to documents sent to Congress on Thursday," the New York Times reports.
• ABC News has Sotomayor's exact response regarding her first contact with the White House.
• "Sotomayor told the Senate on Thursday that the White House never questioned her about cases or issues she might have to decide as a Supreme Court justice, a disclosure gleaned from reams of documents that reveal she has spoken repeatedly about how her gender and Latina heritage affect her judging," AP reports.
• "Sotomayor delivered multiple speeches between 1994 and 2003 in which she suggested 'a wise Latina woman' or 'wise woman' judge might 'reach a better conclusion' than a male judge," CQ reports.
• "Sotomayor once told a group of minority lawyers that she believed a delay in her confirmation as a federal appeals judge a decade ago was driven partly by Republican lawmakers' ethnic stereotypes of her, suggesting that the tensions surrounding her current nomination are hardly new to the New York jurist," the Washington Post reports.
• "It appears the White House enlisted some outside help in vetting" Sotomayor," the Blog of Legal Times reports. "In Sotomayor's Senate questionnaire... she revealed that Zuckerman Spaeder partner Leslie Kiernan, who specializes in congressional investigations, ethics and white-collar criminal defense, was among the first to interview the judge."
• "As a federal judge," Sotomayor "dealt with two important media issues -- copyrights and access -- and was reversed by higher courts when she ruled that freelance writers need not be compensated for online use of their published work, documents released Thursday show," AP reports.
• The Washington Post runs excerpts from several of Sotomayor's past speeches.
• "About three in 10 Americans say they have followed news about" Sotomayor "very closely and, for the most, part they like what they've learned about her more than they dislike, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted May 29 - June 1," CQ reports.
• Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, says Sotomayor's "favorite Supreme Court justice is Benjamin Cardozo," CQ reports.
• "If one wants to understand Ms. Sotomayor's journey from boutique corporate lawyer to strikingly young federal judge, the eight-year stretch from 1984 to 1992 offers the best window into her maturation as a public figure," the New York Times reports. "Her service on the city's Campaign Finance Board was vigorous, as she joined decisions that challenged three present or future mayors of both parties."
Commentary after the jump.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "Sen. Lindsey Graham raised concerns Wednesday about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's temperament as a judge, becoming one of the first senators to do so. 'There's a temperament problem,' said the South Carolina Republican after emerging from a private meeting," CQ's Legal Beat reports.
• Following private meetings with Sotomayor, "two Northwest Democratic senators [said] they are impressed" with the nominee, the AP reports.
• The FBI "has completed its background report on" Sotomayor "and has delivered the report to the Senate Judiciary Committee," The Blog of Legal Times reports.
• The New York Times examines the "competing pressures Republicans face as they sort through how to handle the nomination of Judge Sotomayor, who is under attack from the right but is a symbol of pride for Hispanic Americans."
• "The unanimous, unsigned, one-paragraph opinion affirming a lower court's ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano may be the closest thing to an Achilles heel in" Sotomayor's "17-year appellate bench career," NationalJournal.com reports. "While interest groups, legal experts and politicians will spend the coming weeks disputing the case's significance, it will undoubtedly loom large in the lead-up to her confirmation hearings."
• "Two D.C. lawyers said at Georgetown University Law Center" Wednesday "that a controversial ruling on property rights could come back to hurt" the nominee, the Blog of Legal Times reports.
• "The five years Sotomayor spent in the Manhattan district attorney's office, say several friends and colleagues, shaped her as a criminal prosecutor and helped form her worldview as a judge," the Washington Post reports.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "As Judge Sonia Sotomayor made her first visit to Capitol Hill as a Supreme Court nominee, top Senate Democrats moved immediately on Tuesday to defuse conservative criticism" over her "wise Latina woman" comment, the New York Times reports.
• The Times also observes that Sotomayor's congressional meetings were "far more ceremony than substance."
• "The only area where there was any outward tension in the halls of the Capitol was over the timing of hearings and a vote," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Republican Senators on Tuesday pushed to have the vetting occur in the fall, while Democrats made clear they were in no mood to draw out the process."
• Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the Judiciary Committee, "said today that she believes" Sotomayor "has a 'real respect for precedent' on abortion," the Blog of Legal Times reports.
• "Within 24 hours of" Sotomayor's nomination, "an alliance formed solely to push the appointment had launched a six-figure ad buy on the major television networks," the Washington Post reports. "Conservative groups, by contrast, stumbled through days of disjointed messages and never mustered the resources for a major television campaign."
• Sotomayor "finds herself under intense scrutiny for the handful of times that the [Supreme] Court reversed her decisions," The National Law Journal reports. "Reversal is a common if sometimes painful part of life for appellate judges, but rarely has it been scrutinized so closely as last week."
• The Washington Post recounts how Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., was denied a federal judgeship 23 years ago.
Continue reading 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.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "Republican senators on the Sunday political talk shows strove... for a respectful but skeptical stance on Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor, saying that she needs to explain her positions but distancing themselves from two notable conservatives, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, who have labeled her as a 'racist,'" the Washington Post reports.
• "Republican Senate leaders won't call" Sotomayor "a racist. But they're fine with" Limbaugh and Gingrich "playing the race card to rile up an out-of-power GOP," the AP reports.
• "Pity the U.S. Supreme Court nominee about to face 19 senators, each with a set of issues, some predictable, some not, and many far removed from the day-to-day work of a justice -- or for that matter, a judge or lawyer," the National Law Journal reports. "The predictable menu of issues is already being written for" Sotomayor "by senators and special interest groups."
• "A confirmation vote before the August recess is unrealistic, the Judiciary Committee's top Republican said Sunday," CQ Politics reports. "'I think that's rushing it,' Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. said on NBC's 'Meet the Press.'"
• The Washington Post looks back on Sotomayor's activities in college, law school and the early start of her legal career.
Commentary
• "President Obama's nomination" of Sotomayor "has been widely hailed as a triumph for Latinos. But," Gregory Rodriguez contends, "it could just as likely spell the end of the very idea that there is such a thing as Latino America at all."
• "Republicans won't be able to block" Sotomayor's "confirmation, expected in early August if not before, but they will be able to exploit a number of issues that cut across all political lines - especially the issue of reverse discrimination in the workplace," Donald Lambro maintains.
• "Clarifying her judicial philosophy requires going beyond generalizations and clichés, avoiding litmus test political issues and focusing on the process by which Judge Sotomayor would interpret and apply the law to decide cases," explains Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in Politico.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "The White House scrambled" Thursday "to assuage worries from liberal groups about Judge Sonia Sotomayor's scant record on abortion rights, delivering strong but vague assurances that the Supreme Court nominee agrees with President Obama's belief in constitutional protections for a woman's right to the procedure," the Washington Post reports.
• "Senate Judiciary Committee staffers are busy vetting" Sotomayor, "but no major decisions about the confirmation process are likely to be made until the panel's top Democrat and Republican return to Washington," CQ reports.
• "Sotomayor's involvement with the" Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund "has so far received scant attention," the New York Times reports. "But her critics, including some Republican senators who will vote on her nomination, have questioned whether she has let her ethnicity, life experiences and public advocacy creep into her decisions as a judge."
• "'ObamaNet' -- the relentless, ubiquitous, new media network assembled around Barack Obama -- was never more apparent than after the announcement of the president's first Supreme Court nominee," USA Today reports.
• Sotomayor "did not vote in the last two statewide elections in New York, according to voting records," the New York Times reports.
• Sotomayor "has a blunt and even testy side, and it was on display in December during an argument before the federal appeals court in New York," the Times also reports.
• "A major climate change lawsuit brought by eight states against five utilities has been pending decision for nearly three years before an appellate panel on which Sotomayor is the presiding judge," the National Law Journal reports.
Commentary
• "Washington loves a good show, and few performances are better than a Supreme Court battle," Dana Milbank says.
• "Basically before it ever started, the fight over" Sotomayor's confirmation "is done." SCOTUSblog founder and lawyer Tom Goldstein predicts that "she is going to be confirmed by a relatively wide margin and without a substantial, mainstream assault on her credentials or suitability for the bench."
• "Despite the best efforts of" Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh "and others," Sotomayor's "confirmation process probably won't be about race," Eugene Robinson writes.
• Charlie Cook describes the back-and-forth over Sotomayor as a "ritualistic Kabuki dance, a rehearsal for the no-holds-barred brawl we can expect if one of the four conservatives on the Court retires while" Obama is president.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "Senate Republicans have yet to decide how tough they will be in grilling Judge Sonia Sotomayor in her confirmation hearings, but this is clear: The Supreme Court nominee already has shown an ability to withstand rigorous questioning," the Washington Post reports.
• "Sotomayor launched her Senate outreach campaign" Wednesday "through phone calls to key Democrats and Republicans and will begin face-to-face meetings when lawmakers return to the Capitol next week," the Post's 44 blog reports.
• Another Post blog, The Fix, reports on five senators who could play important roles in the upcoming confirmation process but who aren't the main leaders on this issue.
• "Many lawyers and scholars who have examined her record closely say that her" appellate opinions "are unpredictable, and do not put her clearly in a pro- or anti-business camp," the New York Times reports.
• The Wall Street Journal reports on how the concept of "legal realism" factors into Sotomayor's judicial philosophy.
• "In the months leading up to" Sotomayor's selection, "the White House methodically labored to apply lessons from years of nomination battles to control the process and avoid the pitfalls of the past, like appearing to respond to pressure from the party's base or allowing candidates to be chewed up by friendly fire," the New York Times reports.
• If Sotomayor is confirmed, "she will be only the twelfth Roman Catholic justice in history," the Blog of Legal Times reports. "But what is remarkable is that six of those 12, if you include her, will be on the Court that convenes in October."
• The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog conducts a Q&A with Douglas Kmiec, a former GOP White House adviser, on the Catholic factor.
• "Sotomayor, already facing bitter criticism from gun rights advocates for an appeals court decision she joined last January, may have to choose whether to take part when the constitutional issue at stake comes up before the Supreme Court (assuming that she is confirmed)," SCOTUSblog reports. "As of now, the first case in line on that issue is the one on which she ruled as a judge of the Second Circuit Court -- Maloney v. Cuomo."
• "Both parties braced for a summertime confirmation battle over" Sotomayor, "with the White House gathering a team to push her through, and conservative critics sharpening attacks on her past speeches and writings," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• "A perennial subject -- abortion -- surfaced again as a question mark and an emblem of other controversial topics, worrying some traditionally liberal groups that the White House may be too intent on portraying Sotomayor as an independent moderate," the Washington Post reports.
• "Newt Gingrich has called on" Sotomayor "to withdraw her nomination," CQ's Legal Beat reports.
Commentary after the jump
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• The New York Times examines several of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's opinions, calling them "marked by diligence, depth and unflashy competence."
• The Washington Post compiles Sotomayor's past statements on notable issues and cases.
• "Sotomayor has built a record on such issues as civil rights and employment law that puts her within the mainstream of Democratic judicial appointees," the Wall Street Journal reports. "Among the cases she has heard during her 15 years on the federal bench -- and one that will be examined closely through her confirmation process -- is one now pending before the Supreme Court."
• "Aside from commending the president's pick of" Sotomayor, "most liberal groups kept their comments to a minimum so that she could hold the spotlight," the New York Times reports. "But privately several acknowledged that they begin this debate with far fewer resources than they could marshal during the Bush administration."
• "As unique as Sotomayor is... she has common bonds with several justices that should help her fit in with the Court, which prizes collegiality," the National Law Journal reports. Like Souter, "Sotomayor has been a trial judge. Like Samuel Alito Jr., she has been a prosecutor. Like Clarence Thomas, she grew up in poverty and mostly without a father. Like John Roberts Jr., she was a litigator in private practice. And like Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she grew up in New York City."
• "An all-out assault on Sotomayor by Republicans could alienate both Latino and women voters, deepening the GOP's problems after consecutive electoral setbacks," the Washington Post reports. "But sidestepping a court battle could be deflating to the party's base and hurt efforts to rally conservatives going forward."
• ABC News reports on how Obama chose Sotomayor.
• The National Law Journal reports that "the American Bar Association's qualification review of" Sotomayor "is underway." The ABA's press release can be found here.
Commentary after the jump.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
Will President Obama be bringing some SCOTUS-related material along with him to Camp David for Memorial Day weekend? Perhaps, according to press secretary Robert Gibbs.
"I think he's looking forward to spending Memorial Day weekend with his family," Gibbs said during today's press briefing. "I don't doubt that he'll take some reading along with him, and work on his selection."
Meanwhile, criticism is mounting against appellate judge and short-lister Diane Wood. National Review's Ed Whelan -- who has written several posts criticizing Wood -- offered a summary argument against her this morning. Later, he followed up with yet another post contrasting her position on military commissions with Obama's.
Wood has received praise, though, from experts on the left and right of the political spectrum. Doug Kendall, president of the progressive Constitutional Accountability Center, calls her an "intellectual leader on one of the best courts of appeals in the country." National Journal's own Stuart Taylor Jr. wrote on this blog yesterday that Wood's "judicial record has won the respect of conservative as well as liberal colleagues and many other experts as well."
Republicans, meanwhile, are gearing up for whoever awaits them at the confirmation hearings. Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., announced today that Elisebeth Cook will be his chief counsel for Supreme Court nominations. Per CQ's Legal Beat, Cook was an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy during the George W. Bush administration.
Something else to watch out for after the long weekend: On Tuesday, the California Supreme Court will hand down its decision on whether or not to uphold Proposition 8, the ban on gay marriage. Observers believe this decision could influence the confirmation hearings and trigger more questioning over the nominee's record on gay rights. The Volokh Conspiracy blog has some thoughts on this issue.
• "The Supreme Court job interviews are continuing at the White House," the New York Times reports. "President Obama has met with at least one other finalist for the job, an official confirmed Thursday, bringing the number of face-to-face interviews to at least two."
• Via the How Appealing blog, the Daily Journal of California reports that the White House has been in contact with Judge "Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd Circuit, and long-shot contender Justice Carlos R. Moreno of the California Supreme Court."
• "The inclusion of Canadian-born Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm on some short lists of potential Supreme Court nominees has raised awareness that there's no requirement that justices be born in the United States," the Blog of Legal Times reports.
• The Legal Times also reports that Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee delayed votes on two of Obama's appellate judicial nominees, David Hamilton and Andre Davis.
• Via video, CQ's Legal Beat "takes a look at a few of the more notable -- and notorious -- nomination hearings of the past."
• "Should judges have a representative in the Cabinet? Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer seems to think so," the National Law Journal reports.
Commentary after the jump.
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "President Obama has interviewed his first prospective Supreme Court candidate, sitting down privately in the White House for a conversation with Judge Diane P. Wood, an official confirmed Wednesday," the New York Times reports.
• Wood, speaking at a Georgetown University Law Center conference Wednesday, "said she had long planned to attend the conference... But she ended the chat when asked whether she would be meeting with anyone from the White House on her trip here," the Washington Post reports. "'No, no, I'm not answering any questions on that,' she said with a laugh before moving on. An individual who is familiar with the vetting process said the meeting had already taken place, as part of a series of sessions with potential nominees that are expected to continue in the coming days."
• Also speaking at the Georgetown conference, "retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter made a powerful plea for re-educating the American public about the fundamentals of how government works," the Blog of Legal Times reports.
• "While much of Washington speculates on who will succeed" Souter, "the retiring -- in every sense of the word -- jurist revealed Wednesday what he will do upon leaving the bench," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• "Sen. Arlen Specter has given his list" to Obama, Legal Times reports. "The former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said today that Obama had asked him" to name some possible SCOTUS candidates. "I submitted four names -- all women, and none who owns a black robe," Specter said.
• USA Today remembers some past "key moments in the selection process."
Commentary
• Wood is profiled by Kristina Moore at SCOTUSblog, Ed Whelan of the National Review and Jeffrey Rosen at The New Republic.
• Jack Balkin does a "thought experiment" about how it might work if there was regular appointment of high court justices.
• "President Barack Obama began interviewing potential Supreme Court candidates Tuesday, while a senior White House official defended the president's stated preference for a nominee who will give the powerless 'a fair shake,'" the Wall Street Journal reports.
• "Obama would enjoy at least one advantage should he wait until Congress' Memorial Day recess next week to announce his Supreme Court nominee," CQ's Legal Beat reports. "Republican senators likely to take the lead in responding will be scattered around the country -- and say they don't necessarily have plans to rush back to Washington if a nominee is announced."
• "Abortion has re-emerged as a hot issue, and if history is any indication, it will get even hotter when" Obama "makes his Supreme Court nomination," NationalJournal.com reports.
• The Washington Post reports that Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., is expected to discuss the process of replacing Justice David Souter at the American Law Institute's annual meeting today at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel.
• If Obama "were to nominate former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano to the Supreme Court, it would become his third big gift to the state's Republicans," the Arizona Republic reports.
• Massachusetts "Gov. Deval Patrick cozied up to" Obama "in a highly anticipated Washington, D.C., meeting yesterday, but Obama aides weren't saying whether the talk turned to an open seat on the U.S. Supreme Court," the Boston Herald reports.
• As Obama "continues his secretive vetting of potential SCOTUS nominees, legal scholars and media observers are throwing out even more possibilities," NationalJournal.com reports.
Commentary after the jump
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• The Washington Post reports on Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm's trip to the White House today. Granholm "is widely reported" to be a short-lister for the high court vacancy, and "White House press secretary Robert Gibbs left open the possibility that" President Obama "could interview her for the job" today.
• Massachusetts "Gov. Deval Patrick is heading to the White House to meet with President Obama amid speculation he is among those being considered for a Supreme Court post," the AP reports.
• The New York Times profiles Homeland Security secretary and short-lister Janet Napolitano.
• The National Law Journal reports on some names that "appear on the short lists of more than a dozen constitutional law and Supreme Court scholars."
• "While advocacy groups are pushing" Obama "to seek diversity in his Supreme Court pick, a survey out" Monday "suggests that Americans care much more about legal experience," the Boston Globe reports.
• As Obama "prepares to nominate his first Supreme Court justice, the White House is doubtless considering not only whom to select but how best to introduce the nominee to the public," CQ's Legal Beat reports.
• "Since announcing his plan to retire, Justice David Souter has gotten, fairly or not, some mediocre reviews for his opinion-writing and for leaving few memorable quotations behind," the Blog of Legal Times reports. "Some colorful language in Souter's dissent in" Monday's "decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal may counter those critiques."
Commentary after the jump
Continue reading Top Nomination News.
• "A seasoned Democratic political operative," Stephanie Cutter, "will guide President Barack Obama's eventual Supreme Court nominee on Capitol Hill, where the Senate's top Republican on Sunday refused to rule out a filibuster," the Washington Post reports.
• "Cutter will reprise the key behind-the-scenes role that Republican operative Steve Schmidt played for the Bush administration on the successful nominations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito," CNN.com reports.
• "What will be the Achilles' heel... for the next nominee? That question might normally wait for the nominee to actually be named. But in the accelerated, intense glare of bloggers and bloviators," Obama's "presumed short-listers have already been picked over and subjected to extended criticism," the National Law Journal reports.
• "Republicans are going on offense to tarnish potential Supreme Court justice hopefuls, attempting to spark an early fight over" Obama's "first nomination to the high court," the Washington Times reports.
• The New York Times reports on how conservative groups plan to attack a number of Obama's potential nominees.
• "Several Republicans acknowledge that it is unlikely they will be able to derail the nomination absent some startling revelation about the candidate," the Times reports.
• "The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee says his party should have been more forceful in evaluating the last two Democratic nominees for the Supreme Court," Legal Times' BLT blog reported on Friday.
Commentary
• "Obama is about to make one of the most important appointments any president can make. For picking a justice for the Supreme Court will have more ramifications for the republic than any cabinet secretary or ambassador," H.D.S. Greenway contends.
Top News
• "Outside organizations on both the left and right increasingly view the fight over a controversial Justice Department nominee as a proxy battle for President Obama's first Supreme Court nomination," The Hill reports.
• The Tuscaloosa News reports on a conference call Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., conducted yesterday with four home-state newspapers to discuss his recent meeting with Obama on the SCOTUS nomination.
• "A striking part of the debate over" Obama's pick "is what's missing from the clamor: how the nomination will affect business," Business Week reports.
• "At least eight progressive groups, including the AFL-CIO, People for the American Way and the National Council of La Raza... met with administration officials [Wednesday] to discuss what they're looking for in a nominee," NationalJournal.com reports.
• According to a new Fox News poll, "Americans think judicial experience should be the most important factor in selecting the next Supreme Court justice, far outdistancing other qualities such as the nominee's race, gender, sexual preference, and issue positions," Fox reports.
• CQPolitics's Legal Beat narrows in on a specific finding from Fox's poll: "Nearly one in four Democrats thinks television personality Oprah Winfrey would make a good Supreme Court justice."
• How do presidents go about picking a Supreme Court nominee? AP offers a Q&A on the topic.
• "Georgia Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears' name has popped up on short lists of possible nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. But her immediate plans are to join a law firm, teach a law school course and work for a think tank," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
• "Federal judges are rarely famous or widely celebrated. Yet during a brief period in 1995, Judge Sonia Sotomayor became revered, at least in those cities with major league baseball teams," the New York Times reports.
• C-Span2's "Book TV" is showing programs on Justice David Souter and former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor this weekend.
Top Commentary
• CNN columnist Ruben Navarrette Jr. claims Obama has "rebuffed" interest groups in his search for his SCOTUS nominee.
• "Unlike some proposed nominees who have little if any experience from which to assess their judicial philosophy," California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno's "views are clear: he is a hard Left judicial activist," contends Heritage Foundation fellow Robert Alt in the National Review Online.
• "While the instinct in choosing a justice for the highest court in the land is to find the most qualified judge or legal scholar, there is a powerful case to be made that the court very much needs an experienced elected official among its ranks," remarks UC Berkeley professor Gordon Silverstein in The New Republic.
• In the National Review Online, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center Ed Whelan looks at how Obama's first appellate judge nominee, David Hamilton, responded to questions from Republican senators.
• Politico solicits predictions from a handful of legal experts on who Obama will pick.
Top News
• "President Obama told senators at a White House meeting" Wednesday "that he would review names of potential Supreme Court nominees over the weekend, leading participants to believe an announcement could come within days, according to senior Senate aides who were briefed on the gathering," the Washington Post reports.
• "The six names confirmed as being under review by Obama include" Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, U.S. Appeals Court judges Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Pamela Wood, and California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, AP reports.
• "White House officials said the list of potential nominees is longer than the six to eight names circulating in public," the Wall Street Journal reports. "An office has been set up in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, with White House Counsel Greg Craig taking the lead and Cynthia Hogan, Vice President Joe Biden's counsel, heading the vetting process."
• The president is "demanding no leaks and high discipline in the search to replace" Justice David Souter, the New York Times reports.
• "James B. Comey Jr., the top Bush administration official who rebelled against plans for domestic eavesdropping, is being pushed by some White House officials for inclusion on the short list of candidates... Democratic sources said," Politico reports.
• During Kagan's "career in academia and in the Clinton White House, she has worked with nearly everyone who counts inside" Obama's "legal circle, including then-professor Obama at the University of Chicago Law School," the Los Angeles Times reports.
• "Why the emphasis on gender? After all, there are no Asians, Hispanics or Muslims, male or female, on the court. But the lack of women is widely perceived as the gap that most needs to be addressed," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, "announced Wednesday that he'd filled senior positions on the committee with lawyers with nearly 40 years combined of Washington experience," Politico reports.
• "An aggressive fundraising group that targeted moderate GOP lawmakers earlier this year has issued a stern warning to Senate Republicans who might vote for" Obama's nominee, CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.
Top Commentary after the jump
Continue reading The Morning List.
Top News
• "When President Obama talks about the traits he admires in a Supreme Court justice, he ticks the predictable boxes -- intellect, integrity, respect for the Constitution and the law. And sometimes he talks about Lilly Ledbetter and the quality he defines as empathy," the Washington Post reports.
• "Georgia Republicans Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson both have nothing but nice things to say about Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears," CQ's Legal Beat reports. "But when it comes to Sears as a U.S. Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice David H. Souter... both men are reserving judgment."
• "The best way for" Obama "to engineer a Senate confirmation vote on his pick for the Supreme Court before the August recess would be to reveal his choice sooner rather than later," CQ's Legal Beat also reports.
• "Sen. Dianne Feinstein, an influential member of the Judiciary Committee, wants" Obama "to consider two Hispanic judges from California," Politico reports.
• "Sen. Jeff Sessions is settling in as the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asking difficult questions" Tuesday "of two nominees at his first confirmation hearing in his new role," the the Legal Times blog reports.
• Gallup reports on its new polling that shows 64 percent of "Americans say it doesn't matter to them whether Obama appoints a woman, with slightly higher percentages saying the same about the appointment of a black or Hispanic."
• AP reports that rumored nominees Judges Diane Wood and Ann Claire Williams will be in the spotlight at a hearing today in Chicago over "alleged religious discrimination."
• The Chicago Sun-Times examines U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo's chances of being nominated.
Commentary
• "It would be no stretch for Obama -- as it would have been no stretch for" President Bush -- to find a nominee who happens to be both fully qualified and in possession of two X chromosomes," Ruth Marcus maintains.
• Writing at CBSNews.com, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., says he wants "a Justice who will make decisions based on the law and the Constitution. Politics and ideological agendas have no place on the nation's highest court, or anywhere in our federal judiciary."
• In the Washington Post, Sessions lays out the "tough, substantive questions" he wants senators to ask of Obama's nominee.
• "When selecting a Supreme Court nominee, White House officials essentially plot the prospects out on a graph," explains ABC News' Jan Crawford Greenburg. "On the x-axis, you measure how closely the nominee fits with what you want in a justice; on the y-axis, you measure how easily the nominee could be confirmed."
• Obama "doesn't need to pick Hillary Clinton for the Supreme Court, as some have suggested, but he probably does have to pick a woman -- and Hillary Clinton is part of the reason," Josh Gerstein says.
• Lawyer Shahid Buttar's story on HuffingtonPost.com "examines the timing and context of Souter's retirement, suggests criteria for his replacement, and identifies Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm as the potential nominees most suited to this historical moment."
Top News
"President Obama plans to meet Wednesday with Senate leaders to discuss replacing retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter," CongressDaily (subscription) reports. "Obama is to talk with Senate Majority Leader [Harry] Reid, Senate Minority Leader [Mitch] McConnell, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking member Jeff Sessions, White House officials said Monday."
Sessions, R-Ala., said "Republicans will begin looking into the shortlist of names" Obama "reportedly is considering and even could warn the White House confidentially if they think a nominee is unacceptable," the Washington Times reports.
"It appears the White House has locked in on two competing sets of nominees: those who have traditional judicial and academic backgrounds and another group that comes from what might be called the 'real world,'" the Los Angeles Times reports.
Souter's "departure from the Supreme Court gives the first African American president a historic opportunity to break another barrier by appointing the first Hispanic to the nation's highest court," the Washington Post reports.
Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, "on Monday urged" Obama "to name a woman to the seat," Roll Call (subscription) reports.
The New York Times profiles possible nominee Diane Wood, a federal appellate judge.
Commentary
In Politico, attorney Keenan Kmiec examines the term "judicial activism."
"It is now widely understood that presidents must value youth in their Supreme Court nominees. The reason lies in the combination of two factors: life tenure and the party system," law professor Richard Primus explains in The New Republic.
"It's in the administration's interest to get his replacement confirmed as soon as possible," The Hill remarks.
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.
