Hi, Slog! I’ve been studying the law of our land at the University of Chicago for the last year (singular), which makes me basically totally overqualified for my weeklong Slog assignment: discussing the nomination and formal Senate interrogation (which begins in one hour) of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, future Supreme Court Justice. It’s good to be back.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Sotomayor is going to be confirmed. This is my cue to use the word “theater” disparagingly. But this genre of political theater is far more tense and interesting than the political conventions. Although Sotomayor will be asked to follow a script, she’s a federal judge with a posh lifetime appointment, and she is not used to following scripts. She’s used to bossing people around. (This is just a fact, though I should say that I don’t completely discredit reports that Sotomayor is pricklier than many of her peers. Yes, it’s easy to dismiss anonymous sources. But consider: Where do you think Jeffrey Rosen was going to find a former 2nd Circuit clerk who valued his/her legal career so lightly that he/she would be willing to shit-talk a future Supreme Court Justice?) In any case, it’s fun to see a person who is used to terrorizing people submitting meekly to being terrorized, if only for a week.
I want the questioning to be brutal because it’s good for our democracy—it takes an especially earnest kind of blindness to pretend that close decisions by the Supreme Court turn on anything but political (in the broad sense of the word) preferences. But I also hope for fierceness because, I have to admit, I had another favorite in the nomination process. Judge Diane Wood of the 7th Circuit, the de facto runner up, not only is a well-respected liberal on a conservative bench (a posture Sotomayor must attain on SCOTUS if she is to be influential), but also speaks multiple languages, plays multiple instruments, started teaching at the University of Chicago when the institution was quite hostile to women faculty members, and stitched this awesome cross-stitch, which hangs in the University of Chicago Law School library:
Judge Wood also taught me civil procedure last quarter. (Don’t worry, I already got my grade, so I’m not sucking up.) So if she’s so awesome, why didn’t Obama choose her? Wood is older than Sotomayor (but no diabetes!), is white, and graduated from a less prestigious law school, so Sotomayor was no doubt seen as an easier sell. I still think that, in areas like search and seizure (see Cassidy v. Chertoff, a disappointing opinion by Sotomayor approving of random searches of ferry passengers’ carry-on luggage and car trunks) and executive power, Wood would have been the stronger choice. But all that’s over, and Wood is probably too old to be taken seriously next time around.
So, Sotomayor! Things to look out for in today’s hearings and for however long they last: 1) Republicans playing the empathy card (the dyslexic firefighter from Ricci v. Stefano is testifying), 2) any hint that Sotomayor, with her background as a prosecutor, will be less sympathetic to criminal defendants than Souter was, and 3) drama. Any drama. In a room full of people with complicated motivations talking past one another, there should be plenty.
The hearing will stream live at newshour.pbs.org starting at 7 am Pacific time today. I gotta work like the rest of you, but I’ll update when I can.
The demographic makeup of every prior justice suggests that Judge Wood would have been “an easier sell” exactly because she is white. I’m Latino and as soon as I heard the Sotomayor nomination I knew one thing: over-scrutiny of personal details.
Sotomayor will be the only justice with thorough crim experience from the bench if she’s approved. That’s the sell, if we’re focused on work experience and substance.
I have met many judges in my life, and they’ve all been unbearably awful people. I hope I never have my destiny decided by one. I’m sure there are exceptions of course. I just haven’t met a nice one. I meet them outside the courts, and they can’t seem to turn off the judging. They’re drunk on the power, and treat everyone like sub-humans outside the court.
@1: Senators are political creatures, and the demographics of the United States are changing. Of course there’s been a lot of froth and prejudice in the media around identity politics, but ultimately that’s only going to help Sotomayor (if not respect for the Court). I’m certain that it will be harder for some Republican senators to vote against Sotomayor for fear of looking prejudiced. (Are you listening to Russ Feingold’s righteous complaint right now?)
Well, the funny part about this is the political theater. This morning on CNN they were running ads “What surprises will be revealed?” Seriously, like she drinks the blood of children or something. And then you go the the CNN webpage and they are running something that her story is a truly American story. Really? A truly American story? So she rose to the top by exploiting others, ruining lives and raping the planet? Afterall, isn’t that really the American story?
What’s the over/under on the number of times we hear “a wise Latina woman” and “empathy”?
It’s got to be rough to sit stoically and listen to the opening statements without being able to immediately respond. I’m just relieved that there is not a McCain nominee up there ready stamp out substantive due process.
Welcome back, Annie! I look forward to following the Sotomayor hearings along with you. As an unwise Latino man, I was annoyed by Sen. Graham’s comment that essentially said, “I have a Latino friend, Miguel Estrada, that we would have chosen instead of you if we had to choose a Latino judge.” I can’t wait to hear how Judge Sotomayor is going to respond to questions that are so dripped in white male privilege.
In today’s Brave New Republican Party, they really do believe that the only way to truly shake off the shackles of racism is to give full expression to it, and in particular to show that the non-white person is in fact the real racist — they all are, don’t you know? Colored resentment refuses to acknowledge that white racism was totally eliminated from all aspects of American society at a stroke in 1965 (those sixties again!) and anyone who says different, or even mentions race in any context whatsoever, is destroying America.
That’s what they believe. That’s what they’re going to bring against Sotomayor. Expect heavy, heavy play for the out-of-context quote everyone’s been bandying about, wherein Sotomayor “said that Latinas are better than white people”. That’s what they think she said.
Of course, this theater, which has no chance of blocking her nom, will instead further calcify the Republican Party’s status as the “all white and proud” party, and will knock another ten points off their national poll numbers.
Ah, U of C… Have you taken any Strahilevitz classes? Picker? Baird? Nussbaum?
Shout-out to Seattle Public Schools case!
welcome back! just in time to catch an outburst from the gallery!
(I like how the “umpire” ideal is coming under fire.)
This seems like the new approach to racism: MAD — Mutual Assured Destruction. Since ( West Valley Swim Club, Jerimiah Wright) it appears that racism will never disappear, even among the high and mighty, the best we can do is balance all the racists out. Build up an anti-white Hispanic against an anti-black white…and so on.
Ultimately, we may all destroy each other…which will be great for helping global warming.
The Refreaklicans have tried to make it appear that she’s this overly emotional, AK-47 wielding, Mexirican revolutionary, when–of course–the reality is the exact opposite. Her actual rulings seem to indicate that she’s a banal technocrat, with no interest in the practical effects of her rulings. She won’t be friendly to progressive and liberal causes, that’s for sure.
Wasn’t Judge Wood knocked off the short list because she’s a lesbian?
@13: No. Judge Wood was on the short list until the very end, as reported by the New York Times, and she is not a lesbian. She’s has been married twice. You’re thinking of Kathleen Sullivan, perhaps? But I don’t think that’s why Sullivan didn’t make it either–everybody knew she was a lesbian when her name was first being floated.
Annie Wagner @ 14,
Yes, you’re right. It was Kathleen Sullivan.
Watching this from a bit of distance it seems that SotoMayor is a corporate progressive – using civil rights as a tool of building corporate hegemony rather than supporting the rights of all individuals equally.
The sad fact is that the national republicans aren’t really that opposed to such a thing.
Now, I’ve not read her case record, so I’m just interpreting a fair amount of debate I’ve heard on the subject – could be right or wrong.
But it could well be a pseudo-improvement in US law when it comes to SotoMayor – definitely a wise latina. I’m hoping not a wisegirl….
From SCOTUSBLOG: “(12:26) Tom Goldstein: [Tom Coburn] is reading the oath office. [Sonia Sotomayor], in a crafty move interjects, ‘I do.’ And technically she’s now on the Supreme Court.”
Every time one of the Refreaklicans (esp. Coburn, Graham, Sessions, Foghorn Leghorn, et al.) begins speaking really slowly and loudly, like he’s ordering quesadillas and S-So doesn’t speak el inglés–DRINK!
Overqualified? As a first-year law student?
@19. Oh, how I’ve missed dense Slog readers. See the bold? And the two adverbs in a row? JOKING. That said, no one else at the Stranger has had any years of law school.
@8: Yes, Strahilevitz and Baird. I haven’t had Nussbaum, but I did see her play Gertrude in a scene from Hamlet. That was interesting.
Yes, because you’ve never shocked us all with your overweening arrogance before, so it was obviously not only unreasonable but dense to assume that you were serious.
Oh but wait. See how I used bold text and a redundant adjective? JOKING.
Only not.
Welcome back.
As a long time slog reader, I simply equate gratuitous abuse of adverbs, bold type, and/or all-caps as signs of insanity.
Chicago, huh? that’s one of the only schools that consistently had a worse social life / unhappy students rating than where Dr. Golob and I went to undergrad in Bawlmor.
Stop reading The New Republican – they’re polluting you’re mind! Read Glenn Greenwald.
Also, please don’t start littering your language with Latin.
And welcome back.