Supreme Court and Sonia Sotomayor

Since the 1980s a growing number of conservatives have talked about the importance of fighting to have confirmed conservatives appointed to the Supreme Court in order to secure their agenda regarding abortion, gay rights, affirmative action and devolving the public education system.

In the coming days conservatives who oppose Sotmayor’s nomination will focus their attack in one of two directions. The first attack is rooted in her 2001 “wise Latina” comment that she was better qualified to understanding various dynamics of some gender and ethic cases because of her gender and ethnicity. Her critics argue that this shows a bias that is in appropriate. Such an attack is rooted in the impossible…approaching a case with a blank slate. It is impossible for a person not to have their probative questions, reasoning and the judicious weighing out of various factors influenced by their religious belief system, education and life experiences.

We need justices who are in touch with their roots, understand how they impact their thought process and attempt to keep them from having undue sway as they come to a decision on a particular case. I find such an attack to be disingenuous as they are made by the same individuals who are upset by past appointees to have not made decisions that were fully in keeping with their religious and education beliefs by making rulings that were not conservative enough.

The second set attacks are rooted in a recent Supreme Court reversal of her appeals court ruling regarding a discrimination case filed by white firefighters in New Haven Connecticut. The reasoning goes that how can she be fit for the court given that she has had a case reversed by the same court to which she is nominated. At first this sounds logical but it is a fallacious argument. Any Supreme Court justice is only one of nine voices and votes on the court. Rarely do any rulings carry the judgment of all nine justices. Recently one case had eight in the majority and one in the minority.

One way to look at those in the minority, particularly cases that go 6-3, 7-2, and 8-1, is that the majority is overturning the ruling and opinion of the minority. If Sotomayor is unfit due to this one issue being overturned by her future peers, then is not Clarence Thomas equally unfit as he has been in the minority more often than not than any justice each year since he was appointed to the bench, including the recent 8-1 case. Oh, I forgot, Thomas is the darling of the ultra conservatives and hence the argument that they use against Sotomayor cannot apply to Thomas.

Hence, as with the “wise Latina” comment, the reversal arguments too are shallow and disingenuous. They are a smoke screen for her nomination being opposed because they do not view her as a conservative. The American Bar Association has rated Sotomayor as eminently qualified, and unless there are solid arguments to the contrary, I will go with their judgment rather than those of political hacks who are trying to obfuscate the high quality of the nominee with their political smoke.