SCOTUS: Do Signs Point To Judge Sonia Sotomayor?
Occasionally, a clue gets dropped in a casual remark that points to something particular in the decision making process. A sign, if you will, of things to come.
I think one such sign may point more firmly toward Judge Sonia Sotomayor as Obama’s SCOTUS pick. It’s a guess, but see what you think.
The Blog of Legal Times mentioned a quote I remembered hearing from the Obama of the campaign trail:
During the presidential campaign in 2007, Obama made that point when he said, “Sometimes we’re only looking at academics or people who’ve been in the [lower courts]. If we can find people who have life experience and they understand what it means to be on the outside, what it means to have the system not work for them, that’s the kind of person I want on the Supreme Court.”
As Jeffrey Toobin pointed out back in February when the news of Justice Ginsburg’s pancreatic cancer broke, both she and Justice Thurgood Marshall had a wealth of legal experience outside the usual "academia and the bench" resume of SCOTUS hopefuls.
Justice Marshall had dealt with discrimination throughout his lifetime and had an active hand in changing the laws of this country for the better:
Marshall had seen segregation his entire life. His mother taught kindergarten in all-black schools, where she earned far less by law than white teachers. After college, Marshall wanted to attend law school at the University of Maryland but the school did not accept blacks. Two years after graduating from the law school at historically black Howard University, Marshall, with help from Howard Law School dean and mentor Charles Hamilton Houston, won a lawsuit forcing the University of Maryland to integrate its law school.
Houston had brought Marshall into the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and their work set the stage for what was to become the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan., case. In addition to Topeka, Brown was accompanied by similar cases from around the country: South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia.
When the case went to the Supreme Court, Marshall argued that school segregation was a violation of individual rights under the 14th Amendment. He also asserted that the only justification for continuing to have separate schools was to keep people who were slaves "as near that stage as possible."
Justice Ginsburg similarly fought those battles on the gender front as the founder of the ACLU’s landmark Women’s Rights Project:
Although she arrived without a civil rights agenda, the treatment Ginsburg received as a woman in law school honed her feminist instincts. One of only nine women at Harvard Law School in 1956, Ginsburg and her female classmates were asked by the dean why they were occupying seats that would otherwise be filled by men….
Prompted by her own experiences, Ginsburg began to handle sex discrimination complaints referred to her by the New Jersey affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union. Ginsburg envisioned that men and women would "create new traditions by their actions, if artificial barriers are removed, and avenues of opportunity held open to them."3 The ACLU Women’s Rights Project was born in 1972 under Ginsburg’s leadership, in order to remove these barriers and open these opportunities. That same year, Ginsburg became the first woman to be granted tenure at Columbia Law School.
So, why do I think all of this may point to Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals? Several things.
She grew up in the projects in the Bronx, lost her father at the age of nine, and was raised along with her brother (who is now a doctor) by her single mother. That’s some life experience to bring to the table.
She began school having much more Spanish than English, but managed to graduate in top levels of her classes all the way through. And went on to become the editor of a law journal at Yale.
She has worked both in a district attorney’s office as a trial lawyer in New York as well as in private practice before her seat on the 2nd circuit, so she has trial chops to bring to the table as well.
She was appointed to the bench originally by George H.W. Bush and is considered, even by conservatives who have been before her, as a moderate judge who is particularly well-versed in the law and well-prepared. That makes for good pushback on GOP antics, it’s just a pity we have to think politics and not legal temperament.
Potential questions: she’s been on the bench 16 years, so she brings a long trail of opinions that the Federalist Society types are already poring over to nitpick (you know they are). She also was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 8, so despite being younger (she’s 54), there are significant health questions there that will need to be answered to the president’s vetting team.
And, sadly, she’s a Yankees fan — you can’t have everything.
I’ll be taking a look at other candidates and opinions and such as the days move forward. So expect more as I keep on digging. If any of you have appeared before Sotomayor, or any of the other potential candidates being bandied about, please let me know your thoughts.
Thanks for this thoughtful post, Christy. I find that regular dunkings at the Lake keeps me ahead of the curve. I appreciate all of the work you do.