As the the July 13 confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Sonya Sotomayor draws closer, Republicans are sharpening their knives while Democrats are trying to burnish her credentials.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced that Sotomayor had received the American Bar Association’s highest rating.
“The ABA’s rating, an evaluation of integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament ‚ should eliminate the doubts of naysayers who have questioned Judge Sotomayor’s disposition on the bench,” Leahy gushed.
But Republicans are trying to build opposition to Sotomayor based on her past rulings, most notably Ricci v. DeStefano, in which she upheld tossing out promotional exams taken by New Haven firefighters because no blacks earned qualifying scores.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor Tuesday that the case calls into question Sotomayor’s judgement and he pointed out that the Supreme Court has reviewed ten of her decisions and disagreed with nine of them.
“Is the way Judge Sotomayor treated the firefighters’ claims in the Ricci case what President Obama means when he says he wants judges who can ’empathize’ with certain groups?” McConnell said. “Is this why Judge Sotomayor herself said she doubted that judges can be impartial, even in most cases? It’s a troubling philosophy for any judge, let alone one nominated to our highest court, to convert ’empathy’ into favoritism for particular groups.”
