Supreme Court Nominee.
President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court cannot be a big surprise to anyone. Of the serious contenders for the position, she was the one who best fit Obama's criteria. In other words, she was the gender and ethnicity he was looking for this year.
If there were more Republicans in the senate, Obama might have gone for an easier win with a "safer" nominee such as Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. But, with 59 or 60 Democratic senators - depending on when or if Al Franken is eventually seated - Obama was confident enough to go with a slightly more controversial candidate. Face it, Gov. Granholm only fulfills two-thirds of the Democratic trifecta. She is female and at least moderately liberal. But she is so obviously Caucasian that she could be an advertisement for sun screen.
Besides, Granholm has said she did not want the court position, preferring instead to continue trying to help her troubled state as governor - a personal decision that, if true, is principled and perhaps even admirable.
Still, Sotomayor is all but assured a seat on the Supreme Court, which is worrisome since she has taken several judicial stances that are troubling. She believes that the federal government should interfere in labor-management conflicts that obviously don't threaten public safety (witness her ruling on the 1995 Baseball Strike) and she has issued at least one ruling against free speech (Avery Doninger V. Paula Schwartz).
But, her most troubling position has been in the case of New Haven Connecticut firefighters - several Caucasians and at least one Hispanic - who scored well on a promotion exam only to find the results thrown out because no Black, and few Hispanic, candidates had passed. Sotomayor appears to believe such a procedure is okay, leading one to believe that - in her mind - racism in the name of affirmative action is permissible.
A lot has been made about Sotomayor's hard childhood - diabetes, growing up in a Bronx housing project, losing her father at a young age - and indeed, Obama displayed the judge's challenging background at Tuesday's announcement, as though they were reasons for supporting her nomination. It has been my experience, however, that such factors only come into play when a candidate already shares the supporter's views. Clarence Thomas had a hard childhood, but liberals didn't hesitate to vote against his nomination. Bill Clinton had a hard childhood, but several Republicans still voted to impeach him.
How the Republican senators handle Sotomayor's confirmation hearing will tell us a lot about the party's future strategy. If the senators question her harshly, that means the party is playing to its conservative base. If, on the other hand, they treat the nominee with kid gloves, then the party has decided to place pragmatist over principle and play to Hispanics, hoping that they become a part of some future Republican coalition.
If there were more Republicans in the senate, Obama might have gone for an easier win with a "safer" nominee such as Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. But, with 59 or 60 Democratic senators - depending on when or if Al Franken is eventually seated - Obama was confident enough to go with a slightly more controversial candidate. Face it, Gov. Granholm only fulfills two-thirds of the Democratic trifecta. She is female and at least moderately liberal. But she is so obviously Caucasian that she could be an advertisement for sun screen.
Besides, Granholm has said she did not want the court position, preferring instead to continue trying to help her troubled state as governor - a personal decision that, if true, is principled and perhaps even admirable.
Still, Sotomayor is all but assured a seat on the Supreme Court, which is worrisome since she has taken several judicial stances that are troubling. She believes that the federal government should interfere in labor-management conflicts that obviously don't threaten public safety (witness her ruling on the 1995 Baseball Strike) and she has issued at least one ruling against free speech (Avery Doninger V. Paula Schwartz).
But, her most troubling position has been in the case of New Haven Connecticut firefighters - several Caucasians and at least one Hispanic - who scored well on a promotion exam only to find the results thrown out because no Black, and few Hispanic, candidates had passed. Sotomayor appears to believe such a procedure is okay, leading one to believe that - in her mind - racism in the name of affirmative action is permissible.
A lot has been made about Sotomayor's hard childhood - diabetes, growing up in a Bronx housing project, losing her father at a young age - and indeed, Obama displayed the judge's challenging background at Tuesday's announcement, as though they were reasons for supporting her nomination. It has been my experience, however, that such factors only come into play when a candidate already shares the supporter's views. Clarence Thomas had a hard childhood, but liberals didn't hesitate to vote against his nomination. Bill Clinton had a hard childhood, but several Republicans still voted to impeach him.
How the Republican senators handle Sotomayor's confirmation hearing will tell us a lot about the party's future strategy. If the senators question her harshly, that means the party is playing to its conservative base. If, on the other hand, they treat the nominee with kid gloves, then the party has decided to place pragmatist over principle and play to Hispanics, hoping that they become a part of some future Republican coalition.
posted by dlh | 8:23 AM
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