Sotomayor

"The purpose of this sideshow is to avoid facts in Sotomayor's actual record that indicate a soft-on-crime judge who twists the law, particularly law at the intersection of race and crime issues, and who avoids binding precedent as a lower court judge in ways that unnecessarily favor criminals and hinder law enforcement," Wendy E. Long, counsel of the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, said in a memo.

Among the evidence Long cited to back up her claim was a position paper that Sotomayor signed in 1981 on behalf of a task force she chaired for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. The paper equated the death penalty with racism.

A conservative group is criticizing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for signing a 1981 memo that opposed the death penalty and said “capital punishment is associated with evident racism in our society.’’

The Manassas, Va.-based Judicial Confirmation Network today said the document, written when Sotomayor was on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, offers a window into her thinking on the divisive issue of capital punishment.

Want a behind-the-scenes example of the kind of criticism conservatives are pushing with members of Congress about Sonia Sotomayor?

Conservative judicial activist Wendy Long, a former clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent a letter to the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning calling into question Sotomayor’s answers to her judicial questionnaire.

It emerged Wednesday that Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s infamous 2002 La Raza ‘wise Latina woman’ comment was not just inartful, off the cuff, or badly stated.

Sotomayor made an almost identical comment — indeed, an almost identical entire speech — in 1994 in Puerto Rico at the National Conference of Law Reviews in a speech entitled “Women in the Judiciary.”

Late Tuesday, it came to light that the White House Counsel’s office had produced a memo and given it to Republican Senators as Judge Sonia Sotomayor made her first round of courtesy calls in the Senate.

The novella, entitled “Sonia Sotomayor: A Nonideological and Restrained Judge,” tried to spin Judge Sotomayor as a proponent of judicial restraint: essentially, to present her as another Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Alito.

The memo is laughable. Even Judge Sotomayor’s liberal-interest-group supporters obviously don’t take it seriously or they would be shutting down the White House switchboard with calls of outrage. It reflects the growing arrogance of a White House that thinks it can say anything it wants, even if the statements bear no relation to the facts. The Obama White House seems to think it can fool all of the people, all of the time.

June 4, 2009

Las Vegas Earlier today nearly two dozen individuals from across Nevada began an effort to urge the US Senate to have a full and open debate into Sonia Sotomayor and her nomination for the Supreme Court.

Rew Goodenow, past President of the Nevada Bar Association said, "The United States Senate should give all Supreme Court nominees, including Judge Sotomayor, the most thorough and fair evaluation. There is more than adequate time between now and October when the next term starts within which to review the nominee's lengthy judicial record. Concerns have been expressed regarding some of Judge Sotomayor's decisions. The Senate should provide sufficient time to evaluate those concerns."

This is the biggest piece of fiction writing I have seen. It bears no resemblance to reality. I have a hard time believing anyone in the GOP would buy this fantasy. The President voted against his own talking points when he voted against Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito as a Senator. He tried to block this philosophy by filibuster. And now he is serving them up to the U.S. Senate? They, of course, do not remotely describe the Obama nominee. The White House obviously has made a mistake, passing out the leftover talking points that must have been in the West Wing about Cheif Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.

TO: JCN Members and Interested Parties
FROM: Wendy E. Long, JCN Counsel
RE: White House Fiction Piece on Sonia Sotomayor

Late yesterday, it came to light that the White House Counsel's office had produced a memo and given it to Republican Senators as Judge Sonia Sotomayor made her first round of courtesy calls in the Senate.

The novella, entitled "Sonia Sotomayor: A Nonideological and Restrained Judge," tried to spin Judge Sotomayor as a proponent of judicial restraint: essentially, to present her as another Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Alito.

The memo is laughable. Even Judge Sotomayor's liberal interest group supporters obviously don't take it seriously or they would be shutting down the White House switchboard with calls of outrage. It reflects the growing arrogance of a White House that thinks it can say anything it wants, even if the statements bear no relation to the facts. The Obama White House seems to think it can fool all of the people, all of the time.

TO: JCN Members and Interested Parties
FROM: Wendy E. Long, JCN Counsel
RE: Sonia Sotomayor and Legal Realism

In recent days, the White House has tried to explain away a number of public statements by Judge Sotomayor suggesting that her view of the role of the Court in our society is a fairly radical one, inconsistent with the "rule of law" as we understand it.

The "rule of law" is a principle of American justice, going back to the most ancient roots of Western law. It holds that the rules of a society are definite and knowable by its citizens, and that those rules are applied impartially by judges, who are servants of the law, but are not above it. In other words, the law, and not the judge, makes the rules. This is what Chief Justice John Roberts referred to in his confirmation proceedings when he described himself as a "servant of the law."

Gary Marx, the executive director of the Judicial Confirmation Network, said the divisions were more about style and tone than substance. He said conservatives agree that Sotomayor is a “judicial activist” — someone who puts her own views above the law — regardless of how they express themselves.

“Our ads are focused on highlighting her published writing and her own words, making sure those are raised because we feel they speak to the issue of judicial activism,” Marx said. “We can have a healthy debate when we focus on her own writings, her published writings and spoken words.”