Federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor, nominee to the Supreme Court, said yesterday that she believes there is an individual right to bear arms, that the death penalty is constitutional, and that the law demands that restrictions on abortion must allow exceptions for the health of the mother.
That’s about as specific as Sotomayor would get in response to questions about her record posed by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the second day of her confirmation hearing on Tuesday.
It’s not surprising, of course, that Sotomayor would not delve more deeply in discussing specific issues – after all, these are issues likely to come before her on the high court, and, in the case of the Second Amendment, likely sooner rather than later.
Instead the majority of the day – the long, long day – was taken up with questions (by Republicans – and, I might add, all white guys) about whether she would be fair and unbiased on the bench. Lawmakers on the right side of the aisle grilled Sotomayor over and over and over about the content of several speeches she’s made over the years, including the now-infmous line about how she would hope that a “wise Latina woman” would “more often than not” reach a better conclusion in a case than would a white male without a similar background. The comment, made during a speech at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2001, was a play on a previous comment by former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who said that a wise old woman and wise old man would reach a similar conclusion. On Tuesday, Sotomayor said the comment was a “rhetorical flourish that fell flat.”
More to the point, Sotomayor said that her work during the 17 years she’s been a judge – first in federal district court in New York and currently as a judge on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – demonstrates that “I do not believe that any ethnic, gender or race group has an advantage in sound judging.”
While much ado has been made about this comment, it seems to me that the underlying point of the comment – that a richness of experience, and of varied experience can be a value to the bench – is completely valid. Consider this: of the 110 Supreme Court judges, 106 have been white men, two have been women, and two of them black men. Without sounding like a person who believes all white dudes have a similar background and experience, I think it is still fair to say that a bench of varied background is not something we’ve yet achieved.
Either way, the hearing continues today, with a second round of questioning by lawmakers.
This article appears in July 10 • 2009.