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Senate Confirms Sonia Sotomayor as Supreme Court Justice |
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What a historic day for the country—Sonia Sotomayor is now a U.S. Supreme Court justice. Just minutes ago, the U.S. Senate voted by 68-31 to confirm one of the nation’s most well-qualified and highly experienced jurists.
Yet I do find it hard to believe that 31 Republican senators voted no. Were they blinded by partisanship or was it a fear of a backlash from the extreme right—a backlash that would be as unpleasant as their attacks on the first Latina nominated, and now confirmed, to the Supreme Court?
Of course, I take pride and satisfaction in seeing a member of a minority group and a woman earn—and I emphasize earn—such a high achievement. Just look at Judge Sotomayor’s long and distinguished legal career and record.
She has worked at almost every level of our judicial system and brings more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice in 100 years.
Her long climb, to what is surely the summit of any legal career, started in a public housing project in the Bronx, the daughter of a factory worker. Every day, living in that Bronx high-rise and attending New York City public schools taught her about the struggles working families endure to get by and provide a better future for their kids.
Judge Sotomayor was the valedictorian of her high school class, won a scholarship to Princeton University and earned her law degree at Yale University, where she served as editor of the Yale Law Review.
She has served on all sides of the legal system as prosecutor, litigator, trial court and appellate court judge. I’d like to point out to the Republican naysayers, she was first nominated to the federal bench in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush, a wise move indeed. Since 1997, Judge Sotomayor has held a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
It has been 15 long years since a Democratic president has had an opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. The current court leans quite a bit to the right and is certainly more friendly to corporations rather than to workers in its decisions. But with two Reagan nominees, two Bush I nominees and two Bush II nominees on the high bench, that’s not too surprising.
Judge Sotomayor brings both her strong and well-grounded legal expertise and experience to the court and her decisions have shown an understanding of the law’s impact on working families. She has said:
I firmly believe in the rule of law as the foundation for all of our basic rights…[and will] never forget the real-world consequences of my decisions.
She has consistently interpreted our labor laws in the manner in which they were intended. In the baseball strike of 1995, she recognized that the owners had forced the strike by engaging in unlawful conduct, and she issued an injunction that reversed the unlawful acts.
She has enforced the rights of all workers to be free of all types of discrimination at work, to be paid the correct wages and to receive health benefits to which they are entitled. She has recognized that persecution for union activity can be a basis for granting asylum in this country.
It is time to put aside right-wing rhetoric, some of which not only bordered on racist, but crossed the line. In subtle ways, those same attitudes showed up in more mainstream places as well.
Judge Sotomayor will continue to interpret the nation’s laws in a manner consistent with their intent and will work to uphold the Constitutional rights of all Americans.
I echo AFL-CIO President John Sweeney who called Judge Sotomayor, “The living embodiment of the American dream.” I am so glad to see that dream come true for Judge Sotomayor and so many others who have for far too long been left out of that dream.
4 Comments
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I’m a little worried about this appointment. Being Cuban myself, I applaud them for finally appointing a Hispanic, as that was long overdue. I feel though that there were better options out there.
Sotamayor’s financial irresponsibility troubles me. She does not live within her means, and this usually reflects irresponsibility in other aspects of her life. I wish her well, but I find that aspect extremely troubling.
Check out my blog about her personal finances at http://www.thedebtgazette.com/2009/08/justice-sonia-sotamayor-financial-irresponsiblity/
are you serious? for a minute lets ignore the validity of your point in the first place. You have no idea what circumstances give her the debt she currently has and you certainly have way too little information to make a judgment that she is financially “irresponsible”.
but, let’s go ahead and look at the numbers you state. $16K in credit card debt. that may seem like a lot in absolute terms but as a percentage of her income it’s quite low, and far below the average person’s. And given that she’s been going through a nomination process in Washington, DC, doesn’t it seem like she’s probably had to spend quite a bit of money lately that she wouldn’t normally? She also has a large extended working class family. Don’t you suspect that she may be providing some support there? wow. those kind of family values sure are irresponsible, aren’t they?
you make a big point of her lack of stocks or bonds. So what? my grandparents didn’t have any either, yet they both had amassed several hundred thousand dollars before they died. They kept it in banks. Did it ever occur to you that the pension of a federal judge is pretty sweet? She doesn’t need to have her own retirement nest egg. You also dismiss the million dollar Manhattan apt and her stake in a Florida condo. That right there is her retirement account!
But most disturbing of all, rather than recognize that she is actually closer to the middle class than any other justice, you seem disturbed that she is not another rich, upper class lawyer from the business class. And that right there, tells us all we need to know about who you are and what you think…
As long as she doesn’t legislate from the bench and make the Constitution into a mere scrap of paper along with respecting the 2nd Amendment, I’m all for her confirmation.
Her finances do not concern me the fact that she is Latino before American does.Few of us came from native born Americans but most of us are native born,I am not Irish American,German American,Afro American or any other kind of American I am AMERICAN PERIOD.My heritage has little to do with how I live my life and does not enter into my descisions I am afraid her decisions have everything to do with being of Latin decent and as such are skewed.