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loquitur · 07-15-2009, 05:32 PM

I'm rapidly getting disgusted by the hearings. There are a few reasons why.

1. Pres Obama won the election and with it the power to appoint judges. Yes, the Senate should be screening for competence, cronyism and corruption, but past that, the President is entitled to nominate whoever he thinks best. I have thought that ever since I graduated law school (i.e. I was OK with Scalia, Rehnquist's elevation to CJ, Bork, Kennedy, Thomas, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer, Roberts and Alito. I didn't approve of Miers because of cronyism and competence.) Sotomayor has been a pretty good judge for 17 years, no one questions her ability or her performance, so what the hell is the problem? She's not who I would pick, but I'm not the President. Barack Obama is.

2. This bullshit about her speeches is just that, bullshit. She spent roughly a decade on the Second Circuit and a number of years before that in the district court. Is there any evidence -- even a smidgen -- that in all that time she preferred any litigant based on race or ethnicity? Sen Schumer may be a loudmouth, but he's 100% right - her record shows she is 100% a straight shooter. A bit left-leaning, but so what? I'm a believer in revealed preferences: people may say lots of things but if you want to see what they really believe, watch what they do. Whatever she may have said in speeches to some of the narrow audiences she spoke to, the fact is that she has been a careful and mainstream judge. (Yes, I know about Ricci; that was a panel decision, and I don't know why the other two judges chose the summary affirmance route. I don't practice in this area, but from what I understand the result was defensible based on prior law, and the district court opinion was pretty exhaustive.)

3. Those speeches about the wise Latina were, shall we say, unremarkable in context. Understand, I think this ethnic glorification is bullshit and probably dangerous long term to the country, but I live in NY and I'm very in tune with left-wing orthodoxies. This sort of comment is utterly unremarkable and probably was uttered with barely a thought. It's sort of like a club handshake; in the circles she was in this is probably as common as "good morning" or as common as (to use another stereotype) Texans having a conversation about their guns. Again: there is no evidence that, whatever lefty pieties she might have uttered, any of that stuff made its way into her judging. So what the hell is the problem?

4. The grandstanding and pontificating from our Senators is just silly. This is an example of how politics infects everything and even keeps peopel from doing their jobs. The Repubs want to score points against the Pres's nominee, so they ignore her record and look at her speeches. Please. This is yet another example of how government decisionmaking is distorted, irrational, self-serving and often counterproductive -- and why we should err on the sideof entrusting it with as little as possible.

07-15-2009, 05:32 PM	#1 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	Sonia Sotomayor I'm rapidly getting disgusted by the hearings. There are a few reasons why. 1. Pres Obama won the election and with it the power to appoint judges. Yes, the Senate should be screening for competence, cronyism and corruption, but past that, the President is entitled to nominate whoever he thinks best. I have thought that ever since I graduated law school (i.e. I was OK with Scalia, Rehnquist's elevation to CJ, Bork, Kennedy, Thomas, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer, Roberts and Alito. I didn't approve of Miers because of cronyism and competence.) Sotomayor has been a pretty good judge for 17 years, no one questions her ability or her performance, so what the hell is the problem? She's not who I would pick, but I'm not the President. Barack Obama is. 2. This bullshit about her speeches is just that, bullshit. She spent roughly a decade on the Second Circuit and a number of years before that in the district court. Is there any evidence -- even a smidgen -- that in all that time she preferred any litigant based on race or ethnicity? Sen Schumer may be a loudmouth, but he's 100% right - her record shows she is 100% a straight shooter. A bit left-leaning, but so what? I'm a believer in revealed preferences: people may say lots of things but if you want to see what they really believe, watch what they do. Whatever she may have said in speeches to some of the narrow audiences she spoke to, the fact is that she has been a careful and mainstream judge. (Yes, I know about Ricci; that was a panel decision, and I don't know why the other two judges chose the summary affirmance route. I don't practice in this area, but from what I understand the result was defensible based on prior law, and the district court opinion was pretty exhaustive.) 3. Those speeches about the wise Latina were, shall we say, unremarkable in context. Understand, I think this ethnic glorification is bullshit and probably dangerous long term to the country, but I live in NY and I'm very in tune with left-wing orthodoxies. This sort of comment is utterly unremarkable and probably was uttered with barely a thought. It's sort of like a club handshake; in the circles she was in this is probably as common as "good morning" or as common as (to use another stereotype) Texans having a conversation about their guns. Again: there is no evidence that, whatever lefty pieties she might have uttered, any of that stuff made its way into her judging. So what the hell is the problem? 4. The grandstanding and pontificating from our Senators is just silly. This is an example of how politics infects everything and even keeps peopel from doing their jobs. The Repubs want to score points against the Pres's nominee, so they ignore her record and look at her speeches. Please. This is yet another example of how government decisionmaking is distorted, irrational, self-serving and often counterproductive -- and why we should err on the sideof entrusting it with as little as possible.