The Supreme Court ruling overturning a decision by Judge Sonia Sotomayor in a racial discrimination case had Democrats scrambling to defend their nominee while it emboldened opponents to question her qualifications and potential bias.
With the start of Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings just two weeks away, critics of the first Latina Supreme Court nominee say Republicans were handed an opening when the Supreme Court threw out her ruling against a group of New Haven, Conn., firefighters whose promotion exams were junked because no blacks earned qualifying scores.
“I think this is going to be front and center in the hearings,” said Robert Alt, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Sotomayor has been under fire by critics who cite her speeches and the New Haven case as evidence that she uses race, gender and personal experience to influence her rulings from the bench.
In one speech, Sotomayor told an audience it would be impossible, if not unpatriotic, to rule on a case without allowing such factors to have an influence.
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the ruling “sharpens our focus on Judge Sotomayor’s troubling speeches and writings, which indicate … that personal experiences and political views should influence a judge’s decision.”
The Supreme Court struck down a decision made by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, a three-judge panel on which Sotomayor sits.
The judges upheld a lower-court ruling against the group of firefighters. The firefighters claimed the city government discriminated against them when it tossed out the results of promotion exams.
But a district judge rejected the firefighters’ case, and Sotomayor, as a member of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, upheld that decision, without explanation.
“This is a serious repudiation, and it raises serious questions about her judgment and her potential bias in the case,” Alt said, adding that Sotomayor’s lack of a written argument to substantiate her ruling in the New Haven case “is going to cause concern among senators.”
Democrats moved fast to put out news statements and hold news teleconferences Monday downplaying any negative effect the Supreme Court ruling could have on the confirmation process, which begins with the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 13.
The ruling, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said, “in no way undercuts Sotomayor.” Schumer said Sotomayor and the other judges on the panel were simply following legal precedent when they handed down the ruling against the white firefighters — avoiding the kind of judicial activism that Republicans oppose.
“It is clear that she is, as we said, a modest judge,” Schumer said. “She is not busy overturning cases.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., denounced the Supreme Court ruling, saying it misinterpreted the work force discrimination law passed by Congress four decades ago.
“The decision of Judge Sotomayor’s panel,” Leahy said, “followed both the facts and the law.”
