Dear Leader Obama singled out 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor several months ago as his nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter. She fulfills the basic liberal requirements of being a Hispanic female.
The media touts the fact that she graduated from Yale. George W. Bush did, too.
The media focuses on the adversity and challenges that she has faced in her life. I wager that I have faced more. Am I more qualified than she is? Perhaps so, by that measure.
The media does NOT talk about how Sotomayor has already demonstrated that she doesn't respect the US Constitution. She joined a 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in this past January's Maloney v. Cuomo case (Maloney v. Rice) in which the court upheld a lower court decision that the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution does not apply to the states. (The case concerned a New York lawyer's claim that the New York state ban on nunchucks violated his Second Amendment rights.) This means that states and cities can arbitrarily deny your 2nd Amendment rights to self-defense via any sort of a weapon.
The Maloney v. Cuomo decision runs somewhat counter to the earlier D.C. v. Heller case from June 2008, where the US Supreme Court held that the District of Columbia's ban on personal firearms ownership was unconstitutional.
An upcoming decision in Nordyke v. King may declare that the 2nd Amendment DOES apply to the states via "incorporation," where the 14th Amendment says that specific amendments to the US Constitution also apply to the states. In that event, the battle will be set to be decided by the Supreme Court. However, if Sotomayor is on that Court, then she will simply vote to uphold her original decision as part of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
This would not be good for the US Constitution.
Her racist comments 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" are offensive, too. Sure, that was a quote concerning discrimination cases. Nevertheless, if a white man had said something like that, he wouldn't even be in the running for the Supreme Court. But Sotomayor is given a pass. I think that's inappropriate and automatically disqualifying.
She has also made comments about her belief that Appeals courts are "where policy is made." I disagree. Courts are for enforcing the law. Not about inventing policy.
Being a justice on the Supreme Court is about applying the Constitution as it is written, not as the justices wish it were written. Sotomayor doesn't understand that.
But, let's assume, for a quick nauseating moment, that she is entitled to use racism and sexism to make her legal decisions. Under that definition, unless she has gray-green skin, boneless tentacles and the normal prime numbers of 3, 11, or 17 eyes, she is unable to represent me or my interests.
For all those reasons and more, she is a bad choice to be a jurist on the highest court in the nation.
I hope Dear Leader Obama is forced to make a better choice, a smarter choice than the mere racial-gender-quota-filling one of Sotomayor.
1 comments:
Actually I kind of agree with her "policy" statement. Courts of appeal (and the Supreme Court, especially) only hear cases that confound all of the lower courts.
So, in many respects, they're operating in uncharted legal waters - often determining new applications for existing laws. I wouldn't call it "setting policy" but I would say it's kinda similar.
I personally don't agree with some of her statements, but she's as entitled to free speech like I am.
Her views will become the latest political football, dissected to distraction by politicians of both parties. I'm grateful every single opinion I've ever uttered isn't open to public debate!
I think she is a capable judge, and over time (like many others) will find her place among the other eight justices.
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