Sonia Sotomayor Obama's Supreme Court Nominee
Calls Federal Appeals Judge “Brilliant and Qualified”
May 28, 2009
President Barack Obama called his Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor “Brilliant and qualified” and said she “would bring more experience to the bench and more varied experience to the bench than anyone who is now serving on the US Supreme Court when they were appointed.”
NBC’s Justice Correspondent Pete Williams said on Today, “It’s clear that President Obama, a former law professor, chose her as much for her academic background and her legal experience as for her remarkable personal odyssey.”
Sotomayor grew up in a Puerto Rican family in Bronx public housing. Her father, a factory worker, spoke no English and died when she was nine years old. Sotomayor’s mother, Celine, a registered nurse, worked two jobs to send her daughter to Catholic school.
At the nomination ceremony, Sotomayor said of her mother, “I am who I am because of her and I am only half the woman she is.”
Sotomayor was inspired by Nancy Drew mysteries and by characters on the television drama, Perry Mason, influencing her decision on a legal career. Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton and was a notable law student at Yale. A lawyer and a prosecutor, Sotomayor became a federal judge in 1992. In 1995, Sotomayor ended the baseball strike, ruling for major league players
Sotomayor’s Qualifications to Serve
Critics speculate that a 2005 statement made by Sotomayor indicates that she is an activist judge. Video footage showed Sotomayor saying to other members of the panel with which she served, “The court of appeals is where policy is made; and I know, I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don’t make law, I know.”
Democratic Senator of New York State, Chuck Schumer, who wrote President Obama in April recommending Sotomayor should an opportunity arise, commented on her statement in an interview with Matt Lauer.
“If you look at her record, she clearly puts the rule of law first. Second, as is characteristic of our politics these days, they left out the second line. She says, [regarding policy] ‘I don’t advocate that.’”
Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama was asked by Lauer, “In terms of pure resume, is she completely qualified to serve?”
“She has a good resume, the kind of resume I like to see in a nominee and that gives her a record that can be examined and we can see how well she’s performed, whether she’s been faithful to the law or not or whether she has a tendency to be aggressive from the bench and assert her own feelings and politics or empathies,” said Sessions.
President Obama’s Choice of Sotomayor
MSNBC correspondent Chuck Todd reported that the President’s choice of Sotomayor was praised by Democrats. When asked what political calculations went into the choice and if Republicans were preparing for a fight, Todd responded.
“The most important day is ‘rollout day’ and the rollout went spectacular.” Todd reported that a lot of Republicans were “truly caught off-guard; in many ways showed political restraint….that tells your that this thing is probably on a fast track. At this point, she would have to have a very bad actual hearing for this thing to get derailed.”
Todd went on to say that the 2008 Hispanic vote “went two to one, Democrat” and that the Republicans are privately saying that they would not want their criticism of Sotomayor to be seen as anti-Hispanic, which will cause political problems down the road in 2010 and 2012.
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