Check Cornell Law Library site in the morning

I caught about 20 minutes of Rush on Tuesday. That was not what I heard. His argument, ( at least in the brief interval I listened) was that she came up under existing discrimination laws. She is a testimony to their efficacy. If that is the case, then how can she be the poster child for the using race apart from law as a determinant?

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I read a report that suggested the R wasn’t going to put up much of a fight about her appointment. Their logic was that the R doesn’t want to further alienate the Hispanic population and end up further reducing the ranks of the R.That and they said the R simply doesn't have the votes to put up much of a fight.

It seems like good logic, provided her record shows no glaring issues.

A 60% reversal rate is not very good...makes one question her judgement

Right. The part I heard was that she rose to the top of her profession, but, Limbaugh said, "And we won't talk about how she got there," or words to that effect. The point Limbaugh wants to make, I believe, is that she is an affirmative action candidate. She did not get there on her own natural ability and hard work. AFAIK, he hasn't come out and said that. In fact, he probably won't. His track record of making racist statements is the reason I am willing to jump to this conclusion about him.

We heard the same thing about Obama - his race was an advantage in getting him into Harvard Law School. That might be a true statement, but what's the point? Once he was there, he excelled. Same with Sotomayor. She graduated at the top of her Princeton class and was editor of the Yale Law Journal. The only reason to bring up her ethnicity in this context is to diminish her abilities.

I'm jumping ahead with all this. We will wait and see what the right-wingers try to use against Sotomayor. I loved Fred Barnes' comment the other day that she's not real smart. WTF? Where does he get that?

The Supreme Court reversed fewer than 1% of her decisions. In the 6 cases where the Supreme Court ruled on the merits of her decisions, she was reversed 3 times, a 50% reversal rate, better than average. At least those are the numbers provided by the White House. If they are wrong, I'm sure someone will let us know.

Here's some more on that point:I haven't done the research to be able to vouch for those numbers, but they aren't surprising. The Supreme Court won't take a case unless it looks like there might be a problem with it. It makes sense that they would reverse most of the cases they take.

If anyone has contrary information to offer, lets see it.

In otrher words, you think she is not qualified because you don't agree with her.

R! R!, matey!

The Sotomayor Nomination

Richard A. Epstein, 05.26.09, 11:45 AM EDT
http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/26/supreme-court-nomination-obama-opinions-columnists-sonia-sotomayor.html?partner=yahootix

Here is one straw in the wind that does not bode well for a Sotomayor appointment. Justice Stevens of the current court came in for a fair share of criticism (all justified in my view) for his expansive reading in Kelo v. City of New London (2005) of the "public use language." Of course, the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment is as complex as it is short: "Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." But he was surely done one better in the Summary Order in Didden v. Village of Port Chester issued by the Second Circuit in 2006. Judge Sotomayor was on the panel that issued the unsigned opinion--one that makes Justice Stevens look like a paradigmatic defender of strong property rights.

I have written about Didden in Forbes. The case involved about as naked an abuse of government power as could be imagined. Bart Didden came up with an idea to build a pharmacy on land he owned in a redevelopment district in Port Chester over which the town of Port Chester had given Greg Wasser control. Wasser told Didden that he would approve the project only if Didden paid him $800,000 or gave him a partnership interest. The "or else" was that the land would be promptly condemned by the village, and Wasser would put up a pharmacy himself. Just that came to pass. But the Second Circuit panel on which Sotomayor sat did not raise an eyebrow. Its entire analysis reads as follows: "We agree with the district court that [Wasser's] voluntary attempt to resolve appellants' demands was neither an unconstitutional exaction in the form of extortion nor an equal protection violation."

Maybe I am missing something, but American business should shudder in its boots if Judge Sotomayor takes this attitude to the Supreme Court. Justice Stevens wrote that the public deliberations over a comprehensive land use plan is what saved the condemnation of Ms. Kelo's home from constitutional attack. Just that element was missing in the Village of Port Chester fiasco. Indeed, the threats that Wasser made look all too much like the "or else" diplomacy of the Obama administration in business matters.

Jurisprudentially, moreover, the sorry Didden episode reveals an important lesson about constitutional law. It is always possible to top one bad decision (Kelo) with another (Didden). This does not auger well for a Sotomayor appointment to the Supreme Court. The president should have done better, and the Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike, should subject this dubious nomination to the intense scrutiny that it deserves.

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I hear lots of people throwing around numbers.
But I have yet to see ayone explain where they got them.

I hear lots of people throwing around numbers.

But I have yet to see ayone explain where they got them.

In this case it is because a 70% reversal rate is the norm.

There would not be a court case if there were not an issue with a previous decision.

That is the way our laws work.

They are constantly put to the test and modified when necessary.

GOP enters 7 stages of grief over Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court justice nomination



The right-wing reaction to Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court was as swift, as it was scattershot, encompassing, it would seem, all 7 stages of grief.

SHOCK AND DENIAL
MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan said the Yale Law grad was "not that intelligent."

ANGER AND BARGAINING
Conservative shock jock Rush Limbaugh predictably pulled no punches.
He called Sotomayor a "horrible choice" and "a racist ... or reverse racist," because she once used controversial words to show how she used her mind and ethnic upbringing to climb from the South Bronx projects to the courts.

Limbaugh was outraged by this comment from a 2001 speech:
"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," Sotomayor said.

DEPRESSION, REFLECTION, LONELINESS
Meanwhile, GOP head Michael Steele urged caution.
"You want to be careful," he told CNN Radio on Tuesday, saying the party has to be mindful of potentially alienating hispanics, an important votic bloc. "You don't want to be perceived as a bully."

THE UPWARD TURN
Conservative critics predicted she would face a grilling over a one-paragraph ruling she and two other judges on the 2nd Circuit issued last year.

She backed the City of New Haven for tossing a fire department test for promotions after too few minority-group members participated - a decision being reviewed by the Supreme Court.


RECONSTRUCTION AND WORKING THROUGH
Although hard-right critics and anti-abortion groups quickly voiced their displeasure with Obama's choice to replace retiring Associate Justice David Souter, initial signals from Senate Republicans suggest they have no serious beef with Sotomayor.

ACCEPTANCE
Other than procedural griping, there was no strong criticism from GOP senators. "We must determine if Ms. Sotomayor understands that the proper role of a judge is to act as a neutral umpire of the law, calling balls and strikes fairly without regard to one's own personal preferences or political views," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

The blowback in the Senate was more over the timing of confirmation hearings. Republicans want at least 70 days to vet Sotomayor - which would push the hearings into the fall. Obama wants confirmation hearings to begin before lawmakers take their August recess.
"I doubt seriously if you could have the hearings before September, but we'll see," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) told MSNBC.

How is that an untrue statement? If you got there via AA, how did you get there on your own natural ability?

Whether he excelled or not is besides the point. In the marathon of life, if you got a hand somewhere, how do you claim this was 100% your own? If I ran a marathon but got a little extra help in the middle and won, can I claim I really won because I was the best runner?

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