After four long days of chattering – mostly by Senators who, it is safe to say, love to hear themselves talk – the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor concluded Thursday – and without any of the fireworks folks had anticipated might come from the testimony of Frank Ricci, the white, male New Haven, Conn., firefighter who became a plaintiff in the recent Supreme case regarding racial preference in promotions.
In that case (Ricci v. DeStefano), a panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, including Sotomayor, ruled that the city of New Haven could dump the results of a promotional test because too few minority candidates passed. Ricci was to be Sotomayor’s Anita Hill, notes the Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank, but that simply didn’t happen.
But that doesn’t mean that certain senators on the Judiciary Committee wouldn’t take the time to use the appearance of Ricci and colleagues to do a little grandstanding regarding race – including, notably, our very own Sen. John “Corny” Cornyn. In what was probably the most cringeworthy moment of questioning, Corny applauded the firefighters for standing up to fight the case where the men were denied “what they are entitled to, because of the color of their skin,” and asked Lt. Ben Vargas, “Do you hope for a day for your children, what we mentioned was Martin Luther King, Junior’s statement previously, [for] a day that they would be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin?”
Thankfully, all of that nonsense is now over and the senators have shut their traps. The New York Times reports that at least one Republican (possibly South Carolina’s Sen. Lindsey Graham?) and “perhaps as many as three of the panel’s seven” GOP members will vote to approve Sotomayor’s nomination. The full Senate is expected to confirm her nomination early next month.
This article appears in July 17 • 2009.