Wall Street Journal — Record Shows Rulings Within Liberal Mainstream
President Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee may have plenty of trouble with what she said off the bench (Latinas are wiser than white males, courts make policy, etc.) but she’s not likely to have any hassles over her actual legal work. Writers Jess Bravin and Nathan Koppel looked at Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s greatest hits from more than 4,000 decisions and found that she has been a conventional liberal in her jurisprudence.
Her biggest cases – like striking down firefighter promotions because not enough minorities passed advancement exams or siding with baseball players against owners – have been on the Left, but not anything other than what the majority of liberal judges would have done. The piece suggests that she would be in the mold of retiring Justice David Souter.
