As the Senate begins questioning Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, she appears all but guaranteed confirmation, but not much support from Republicans who plan to grill her on gun ownership rights and her support for racial preferences.
“There is a very good chance she will get more votes than [Chief Justice John] Roberts got, which was 78,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” talking about Roberts’ 2005 confirmation. “She is going to be approved by a large margin.”
But Republicans were far less enthusiastic about Sotomayor, who in many speeches suggested that she uses her history as a Latina and other personal experiences and prejudices to guide her decisions on the bench.
The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, called those views “a blow to the very idea of American justice” on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
But he declined to say whether he would vote against her, promising only to grill her on the subject.
“She’s going to have to answer to that because this is a mature judicial philosophy that she has stated,” Sessions said. “She has criticized the idea that a woman and a man would reach the same result. She expects them to reach different results. I think that’s philosophically incompatible with the American system.”
But Republicans have little power to block Sotomayor because Democrats outnumber them with control of a filibuster-proof 60 votes.
The Judiciary Committee is made up of 12 Democrats and seven Republicans, so there is virtually no chance the GOP can block her in committee.
Both sides plan to call more than a dozen witnesses. The Republicans have invited Frank Ricci, who as a New Haven, Conn., firefighter sued the city after it threw out promotional exams because no black firefighters earned qualifying scores. Sotomayor, as a circuit court judge, upheld that ruling, but the Supreme Court declared it to be racial discrimination and threw out the decision.
Republicans will also call on former National Rifle Association President Sandy Froman, who has warned Sotomayor will not uphold the Second Amendment guaranteeing the right to keep and bear arms. Sotomayor ruled earlier this year that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states.
“It’s a serious issue,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a member of the Judiciary Committee, told The Examiner. “She went too far, and she is going to have to explain it.”
Republicans will also probe Sotomayor’s views on abortion with the help of Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life. Yoest has said Sotomayor has a “pro-abortion agenda.”
Democrats will call New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others who will help paint Sotomayor as a mainstream judge, which Democrats tried to do on the Sunday talk shows.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who also appeared on “Face the Nation,” called Sessions’ concerns about bias “grasping at straws.”
Leahy said he asked Sotomayor about her speeches regarding personal prejudices, “and she said ultimately and completely, ‘The law controls.’ ”
