The polarization is manufactured. This nomination is just practice for the next one who would surely be more threatening.
Racialism is polarizing, even if her record is not.
What is “racialism”? Not being Anglo?
If this is intended to be an assertion that she is radical, it’s missing some key supporting argument… or as my high school debate coach used to endlessly repeat: “A gratuitous assertion may be equally gratuitously denied.”
You ain’t the only one. The whole process has degenerated into a political circus. As an “untrained outsider” looking in, I would think and hope a GOOD judge checks his left/right leanings at the door and works within The Law. Therefore, only his/her abilities and qualifications should matter.
That’s how I see it. If you play a game where you bind yourself to rules that the other side does not, you lose.
The implication would be that Democrats can safely push judges that are more to the left of center than the Republicans can push to the right, which would have the overall impact of pushing things to the left, on the whole. The only way to keep a balance is to go tit-for-tat.
FWIW, politicization of Supreme Court nominations has been going on since at least Cleveland’s time in office. Bork was not the first nominee to be stonewalled for reasons apart from judicial qualification.
Also known as a race to the bottom.
If this is the case we are all screwed.
Nope. It was a gradual process:
wiki:
*The Committee’s practice of personally interviewing nominees is relatively recent, beginning with Harlan Fiske Stone in 1925. Some western senators were concerned with his links to Wall Street and expressed their opposition when Stone was nominated. Stone proposed what was then the novelty of appearing before the Judiciary Committee to answer questions; his testimony helped secure a confirmation vote with very little opposition. The second nominee to appear before the Committee was Felix Frankfurter, who only addressed (at the Committee’s request) what he considered to be slanderous allegations against him. The modern practice of the Committee questioning nominees on their judicial views began with the nomination of John Marshall Harlan II in 1955; the nomination came shortly after the Court handed down the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, and several Southern senators attempted to block Harlan’s confirmation, hence the decision to testify.[11]
A simple majority vote is required to confirm or to reject a nominee. Once the Committee reports out the nomination, the whole Senate considers it. Rejections are relatively uncommon; the Senate has explicitly rejected twelve Supreme Court nominees in its history. The most recent rejection of a nominee by vote of the full Senate came in 1987, when the Senate refused to confirm Robert Bork.
*
One could say “it started” with Stone in 1925, or Harlan in 1955, or jt about anywhere around there.
Or we could say “it started” in 1795 (wiki)"*Jay resigned his post as Chief Justice, and George Washington again appointed Rutledge during a recess of the Senate to the U.S. Supreme Court, this time as Chief Justice of the United States. Rutledge became Chief Justice on July 1, 1795.[27] Soon thereafter, on July 16, 1795, Rutledge gave a highly controversial speech denouncing the Jay Treaty with England. He reportedly said in the speech “that he had rather the President should die than sign that puerile instrument” – and that he “preferred war to an adoption of it.”[28]
Rutledge’s outspoken opposition to the Jay Treaty, the rumors of mental illness he had suffered since the death of his wife in 1792, and that he resorted to alcohol caused the Federalist-dominated Senate to reject his appointment on December 15, 1795. As a result, Rutledge’s recess appointment automatically expired at the end of that Senate session: he resigned on December 28. Rutledge thus became the only U.S. Supreme Court Justice in history to be forced out of office involuntarily, ending his public career."*
Thus the Federalists “started it”.
I don’t know. All it means is that you are going to have relatively centrist judges, unless one party gets 60 votes (which the Dems currently have).
ISTM obvious - from my admittedly right wing perspective - that the Democrats “started it”, although I imagine the Democrat counterargument would be that they tended to nominate more centrist candidates, as compared to the Republicans who nominated fringe candidates. (This is a pretty subjective notion that doesn’t lend itself to conclusive determination, as who is the mainstream and who is the fringe tends to be largely dependent on where the assessor stands, and is hence the subject of endless debates, both on MBs like this one and RL political situations.)
Myself, I think the Democrats started it because they have in recent history relied more heavily on the judiciary to advance their positions than conservatives have.
But regardless, once one side adopts a tactic, the other side must too, whether in sports, war or politics.
I dunno…
Maybe it has to do with in the last 40 years Republicans have put 13 justices on the bench and Democrats have put 3 on (including Sotomayor).
So perhaps they feel more compulsion to try and keep some semblance of a balance on the court. (just guessing)
I disagree in this case.
Sotomayor has a lengthy judicial record and is provably moderate in her jurisprudence (it was noted somewhere she sided with the conservative jurists she sat with 90% of the time). Further, the Dems control the Senate. Frankly Sotomayor is a shoe-in and Republicans should be thrilled Obama did not shove some ultra-lefty down their throats.
The Reps then could have chosen to do their job as it is ideally envisioned and be gracious while asking relevant questions. Instead they chose to make it about race and nitpick one minor statement.
There was no need to go there. Reps could have shown those Dems how an august body acts and shown class. They could not stop Sotomayor’s nomination anyway so indeed I think this is the actual better tactic.
They chose the race to the bottom route and missed an opportunity to recast the nominating process as a meaningful task rather than a forum for grand standing.
Hell, we didn’t even start it until relatively recently. I think the evidence is pretty clear that the Republicans held to the notion that barring a truly unacceptable nominee, the President was entitled to his choice.
That said, though, this is clearly not the standard the Democrats were using - certainly not their more activist members. Bork was defeated - wrongly, in my view. Souter was confirmed by a vote of 90 to 9 - the nine Democrats in opposition included Kerry and Kennedy. Thomas won confirmation with very little Democratic support. Roberts split the Democratic caucus and Alito had only four Democrats voting for him, plus John Kerry trying to filibuster his appointment.
Breyer and Ginsburg won easy confirmations because Republicans helped make that process easy - it is instructive that Orrin Hatch did so much to ensure a simple confirmation for Ginsburg but cannot support Sotomayor now.
Fact is, the Democrats fight tooth and nail over Republican nominees since the Bork nomination - saying the Democratic nominations have gone smoothly in these years is a false comparison to say the least. And while I would prefer a less politicized process, I don’t see that happening, so barring that I want my side to fight harder than theirs.
BTW, Bricker, I know we disagree on this subject a bit. But before this appointment I was asked which Supreme Court nominees on the “short list” I could support - and I did name a few. Those few did not include Sotomayor, who even then creeped me out a bit with her racial rhetoric and her Second Amendment views. Had Obama appointed Kagan or Sunstein, I would have been much happier - because a fair legal mind was getting onto the Court. I just don’t feel that way about Sotomayor.
You do, and that’s an opinion I respect - I just don’t agree.
I wonder how much of the opposition is there when a SCOTUS candidate is seen as hostile to a particular party’s sacred cow.
I do not remember all the details of various nominees stances towards something like abortion (or Roe v. Wade to put it another way) but I seem to recall Alito was known to oppose that decision.
Imagine Obama nominated a candidate who was a founding member of People United to Repeal the 2nd Amendment (made that up for extreme illustration). I am willing to bet Republicans would go apeshit and “Bork” that candidate.
Also, for all that Dems have done it more, remember there have been lots and lots more opportunity for Dems to oppose a candidate. Had Dems put 75% of the Supreme Court there in the last 40 years I wonder if Reps would have found more occasion to get pissy.
Probable. I saw a numerical analysis that suggested she was slightly to the left of average Democratic appointees. But it’s my impression that at lower level of the judiciary, ideology counts for less, and Democrats appoint some conservatives and vice versa (e.g. Sotomeyer herself).
You could argue that and some have. But there’s also a contrary school of thought which suggests that if Sotomeyer won an overwhelming majority Obama would be emboldened to pick someone even further left next time around, and a shot across the bow is needed to forstall that. Who knows what works better? It doesn’t seem to me that the Democrats have been hurt politically by numerous battles of this sort. (This case might be different because of the Latino factor, although the Democrats blocked Estrada without reprecussions.)
I’d actually think it would give them credibility. Obama might take their assent as an opportunity to appoint someone even further to the left, but that’s when the gates can come crashing down. If they obstruct everything, they get written off eventually as merely crying wolf, but if they let the non-objectionable stuff pass without difficulty, then it becomes significant when they block a more radical appointment.
The gates don’t come crashing down. At least at this time, with 60 Senate seats. Anyone Obama nominates is going to be voted in (or at least they won’t be rejected for being too liberal). But Obama would probably like to avoid a bruising public fight about him appointing (& by extension, being) a far out liberal, so he’s more likely to avoid it if he knows in advance the fight would come. At least in the opinion of this school of thought, and I slightly incline to this view.
Again, the Democrats have fought longer and harder over these appointments than Republicans, and it doesn’t seem to have hurt them. It even gained them a crucial appointment in Souter (since Bush I tried to get around them by nominating a stealth conservative, who turned out to be a stealth liberal instead.)
The repubs got super conservatives on the court during Bush. Why shouldn’t the dems put in a super liberal to try to counter that next time?
I’d be curious in that analysis. Here’s one analysis I read:
Sounds to me like exactly the sort of person conservatives say they want on the bench (i.e. not a judicial activist).
I’m way out of my depth on this subject, but this sort of objection strikes me as not being qualitatively different than partisan objections to, say, Bork (although obviously yours are way more even-tempered than Kennedy’s hysterical speech). Sotomayor made an unfortunate statement or two, which she walked back during her confirmation hearings. Sotomayor may seek to curtail gun rights to some extent (although I certainly don’t see her as being openly opposed to the Second Amendment). Contrast this with Bork, who finally pulled the trigger in the Saturday Night Massacre–an issue I find most troubling given the implications in how oversight of the executive branch is conducted. He also did not subscribe to a constitutional right to privacy. That’s a debatable position to be sure, and one that I don’t find absolutely noxious–but it is currently settled law.
However, both individuals are excellent legal scholars, experienced jurists, and have a pretty reasonable temperment. Why oppose Sotomayor but view the Bork opposition as being unfounded?
I looked around a bit and couldn’t find it - sorry (IIRC it was in the NY Times, and gave her either a 59 or 57 ranking on some liberal score, versus an average of 51 - IIRC - for Democratic appointees. Perhaps someone else has seen this and/or knows how to find it.)