Potential Supreme Court Justice, Sotomayor is on President Obama's nomineeto replace Justice Souter. Born to Puerto Rican parents and raised in the South Bronx, she'd be the first Latina Justice.
Alleged "angry latina", baseball messiah, and our next Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor
May 28, 2009
by Tess_Martinez
Rating:
+5
Meet Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court. She's already been painted by the press as an "angry latina" and "not very bright." Shyeah. Not very bright people get into Princeton and Yale all the time, I'm sure. There's also been nasty commentary that the divorced and childless Sotomayor is, well, divorced and childless. Depite all the mean things people have called Sotomayor, no one's questioned that she's one tough chick. She grew up in the housing projects of the South Bronx. She's lived with diabetes since she was eight. She protected little girls who had been subjected to invasive strip searches. She freakin saved baseball! In 1995, Sotomayor stopped Major League Baseball from hiring new players and telling their existing players, who had been on strike for nearly a year, to take a hike. Because of the injunction, the MLB was forced to pay up, and the game continued.
Folks in the Hispanic community are excited--she'd be the first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court, which is nice, but more importantly to me, she comes from a single-parent working class background. Her dad died when she was nine, leaving her mom to support the two Sotomayor kids (she has a brother, Juan, who is a doctor these days) by working six days a week as a nurse. She got her undergrad from Princeton where she graduated summa cum laude and went to law school at Yale. She's got twenty years of experience on the bench, and, if confirmed by the Senate, will be one of only two Justices with experience as a trial lawyer.
Something also tells me that as a diabetic who grew up in a poor family, she'd be inclined to rule in favor of the people versus the medical industry. Something tells me that as the daughter of immigrants, (her parents left Puerto Rico during WWII) she'd be less inclined to purging this country of folks without the proper paperwork. Her ruling on baseball is indicative of what future rulings on labor issues might be like.
But her opponents say she's a radial liberal prone to activist judge tendencies. Justices are there to interpret the law, not to make policy or, say, decide who gets to be the president, for example. Ahem. Besides, Sotomayor is a communist-radical-liberal anyways.
Not really, though. She was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1991 by none other than George H.W. Bush, where she served as the youngest federal judge in New York and the only Hispanic in her district. From there, she was given her current job as a Federal Judge for the US Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit, by Bill Clinton in 1998, where she went on to interpret the law in ways unlike many would predict a far-leftist would. As in, she sided with anti-abortionists when the question of funding abortions as part of international aid came up, specifically in Mexico City.
For what it's worth, some Republicans are posturing, indicating that they may try to block her from getting to the bench during the Senate hearings. That strategy won't work. For all the harrumphings they can muster, the Democrats have an almost impenetrable filibuster-proof majority. Not that reasonable Republicans would want to block her. Though she's a solid liberal, Sotomayor hasn't made any flagrantly left-wing judgements and is widely condsidered to be a centrist.
Essentially, she's a shoe-in for the job, as long as she's paid all her taxes and nothing horrifying comes out at the Senate hearings. And with a Nuyorican like her guarding the constitution, I think we can all rest a little easier.
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QUEENBFLIXJune 19, 2009
Sadly I just learned that our friend Tess Martinez was killed in a car accident. She will be greatly missed.
Unlike awesomely diverse California, most of the USA bristles against diversity. Washington, DC has been a white boy's club for too long (Excuse my political incorrectness, amiga).
Great review! Putting aside the left/right issue for a moment, it is great to see more diversity in the highest offices of the government. Her personal story is also extremely inspiring.
Tess_MartinezMay 28, 2009
Isn't it, though? As far as the whole left right thing goes, however, she really is a centrist. That's why there should be no problem getting her in there.
Didn't Gee Dubya go to Yale so there some intelligence exceptions. And I don't think the US should withhold funding to impose values to other countries about abortion. Also in my humble opinion the federal government had absolutely no right to end that baseball strike, I was furious at Clinton over that, among other things. Even still, I think she is a fantastic pick. She will provide the nation's highest court with insight we have never had before. The judicial arm of government could use a shot of estrogen. I love how conservatives are trying to portray being empathetic as a bad thing. Perhaps they never looked the word up and are confusing it with sympathy.
Tess_MartinezMay 28, 2009
*sigh* and yes, of course that's one of the main arguments against her, that she's being nominated just because she's a latina, exactly the way that president Obama was elected just because he's black. Remember that song, "Here's Your Sign," about how certain people should have to wear a sign so the rest of us know to ignore them? I think Bill Engvall was right, we should bring it back.