Sessions "Flabbergasted" by Sotomayor's Philosophy
Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama said today that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's judicial philosophy, as articulated in her speeches, marks "a blow, I think, at the very ideal of American justice."
"In a number of her speeches, for example, she has advocated a view that suggests that your personal experiences, even prejudices — she uses that word — it's expected that they would influence a decision you make," he told "Face The Nation" host Bob Schieffer.
Sessions is the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sotomayor's confirmation hearings begin Monday.
"Every judge must be committed every day to not let their personal politics, their ethnic background, their biases, sympathies, influence the nature of their decision-making process," Sessions said. "When you show empathy for one party, Bob, you necessarily show a bias against another group."
He told Schieffer that Sotomayor has "criticized the idea that a woman and a man would reach the same result," something he said is "philosophically incompatible with the American system."
"I am really flabbergasted by the depth and consistency of her philosophical critique of the ideal of impartial justice," he said.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said he "totally disagree[s]" with Sessions' assessment and suggested the Alabama Republican is "grasping at straws" and "nitpicking."
"Here's a woman who is a mainstream judge, and she deserves respect as a judge," he said. "She has a track record. And she has shown to be a mainstream judge. You don't have to guess what kind of a judge she's going to be. I've asked her about her speeches, and she said ultimately and completely the law controls. As a judge, she's shown over and over again, ultimately and completely the law controls."
He said Republican opposition "gives the impression that a lot of people were going to oppose anybody, anybody that President Obama came up with."
Schieffer asked Sessions if he would really try to stop Sotomayor's nomination (which is widely thought to be likely to succeed), or if he would simply use it as a so-called "educational moment."
"I hope it is an educational moment because I think we are moving at a crossroads in American jurisprudence," Sessions said. "Are we going to adhere to the classical view of the role of a judge as a neutral arbitrator not out to promote an agenda or an ideology, or are we going to have a restrained judge who follows the law in case after case?"
Leahy said he hopes the hearings do not "turn into a partisan fight."
"Chief Justice Roberts is not somebody I would have recommended as a nominee to President Obama," he said. "But I voted for him when he was nominated by President Bush because I felt Chief Justice of the United States should not be on a party-line vote."
Editor's Note: On Monday, visit our CourtWatch blog to watch live video of Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings, plus running commentary from CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen via Twitter.
More from Face The Nation (7.12.09):
Leahy on Cheney: "No One Is Above the Law"
Sessions: Investigation of Torture Is Unnecessary
Schieffer: A Little Context
Download the Complete Transcript (pdf)
To watch Senators Leahy and Sessions debate Sotomayor, Cheney and investigations, click on the video player below.
Click on the video player below to watch a roundtable discussion, featuring Kevin Merida of the Washington Post and syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, about a possible investigation into the Bush administration's use of torture tactics and its concealment of a CIA program from Congressional overseers.
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Sessions is the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sotomayor's confirmation hearings begin Monday.
"Every judge must be committed every day to not let their personal politics, their ethnic background, their biases, sympathies, influence the nature of their decision-making process," Sessions said. "When you show empathy for one party, Bob, you necessarily show a bias against another group."
He told Schieffer that Sotomayor has "criticized the idea that a woman and a man would reach the same result," something he said is "philosophically incompatible with the American system."
"I am really flabbergasted by the depth and consistency of her philosophical critique of the ideal of impartial justice," he said.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said he "totally disagree[s]" with Sessions' assessment and suggested the Alabama Republican is "grasping at straws" and "nitpicking."
"Here's a woman who is a mainstream judge, and she deserves respect as a judge," he said. "She has a track record. And she has shown to be a mainstream judge. You don't have to guess what kind of a judge she's going to be. I've asked her about her speeches, and she said ultimately and completely the law controls. As a judge, she's shown over and over again, ultimately and completely the law controls."
He said Republican opposition "gives the impression that a lot of people were going to oppose anybody, anybody that President Obama came up with."
Schieffer asked Sessions if he would really try to stop Sotomayor's nomination (which is widely thought to be likely to succeed), or if he would simply use it as a so-called "educational moment."
"I hope it is an educational moment because I think we are moving at a crossroads in American jurisprudence," Sessions said. "Are we going to adhere to the classical view of the role of a judge as a neutral arbitrator not out to promote an agenda or an ideology, or are we going to have a restrained judge who follows the law in case after case?"
Leahy said he hopes the hearings do not "turn into a partisan fight."
"Chief Justice Roberts is not somebody I would have recommended as a nominee to President Obama," he said. "But I voted for him when he was nominated by President Bush because I felt Chief Justice of the United States should not be on a party-line vote."
Editor's Note: On Monday, visit our CourtWatch blog to watch live video of Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings, plus running commentary from CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen via Twitter.
More from Face The Nation (7.12.09):
To watch Senators Leahy and Sessions debate Sotomayor, Cheney and investigations, click on the video player below.
Click on the video player below to watch a roundtable discussion, featuring Kevin Merida of the Washington Post and syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, about a possible investigation into the Bush administration's use of torture tactics and its concealment of a CIA program from Congressional overseers.
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Obviously you're not very good at statistics.
The SC reviewed only five of her rulings. Of those five, three were found to be faulty.
What if the SC applied equal scrutiny to her other rulings? are you saying they would over turn ZERO?????
No, the reasonable thing would be to estimate that an equal percentage of those rulings would also be found faulty.
If all of her rulings have a unform defect rate, that would mean a whopping 139 of her rulings would be overturned.
If you consider a Supreme Court review of her work to be her final exam as a judge, that means she scored a 40 on her final.
What a total moron.
You don't even have the beginning of a rudimentary education, on how our court system / appeals process works.
I have no time to educate you, as you appear stupid beyond belief.
I'll just say that you need to learn how AND why the Supreme Court decides which cases to hear, and which ones they don't.
Good luck with your education. You - personally - obviously have a lot of work to do.
So according to you THREE out of the FIVE of her rulings were overturned.
THAT'S 60%.
No - according to ME, only 3 out of 232 of her rulings were overturned by the Supreme Court. That's only 1.3%.
Your math only works if she made a grand total of FIVE rulings in her Appellate Court career as a judge, ALL FIVE of them were reviewed by the Supreme Court, and 3 out of those 5 were overturned. Then, and only then, could you say that 60% of her rulings were overturned by the Supreme Court. (Seriously, how can you realistically discount 227 of her rulings, and pretend like she never made them?)
But even if you WERE right, which obviously you're not, her record is STILL better than the average that the Supreme Court hears and overturns:
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/what_percentage_of_sonia_sotomayors_opinions_have.html
"In any case, 60 percent of the cases the Supreme Court has reviewed is not a particularly high number. In any given term, the Supreme Court normally reverses a higher percentage of the cases it hears. During its 2006-2007 term, for instance, the Court reversed or vacated 68 percent of the cases before it. The rate was 73.6 percent the previous term."
The SC reviewed only five of her rulings. Of those five, three were found to be faulty.
What if the SC applied equal scrutiny to her other rulings? are you saying they would over turn ZERO?????
No, the reasonable thing would be to estimate that an equal percentage of those rulings would also be found faulty.
If all of her rulings have a unform defect rate, that would mean a whopping 139 of her rulings would be overturned.
If you consider a Supreme Court review of her work to be her final exam as a judge, that means she scored a 40 on her final.
Now the failure president Obama wants to put the failure judge on the Supreme Court.
Well, with a failure public school system and a failure justice and corrections system, it just makes sense that the failure of our nation should spread to the White House and the Supreme Court.
No matter how you look at it, Obama gets an F on his report card.
"In any case, 60 percent of the cases the Supreme Court has reviewed...
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LOL! hungry, you just posted that factcheck agrees with me.
And you think that proves I'm wrong????
Sounds like you got some bad kool-aid.
How many of those 232 were reviewed by the Supreme Court?
You're using bogus math.
Excellent point.
Of her 232 rulings, only FIVE were ever reviewed / deemed reviewable by the Supreme Court.
That's a WHOPPING 2.15% of ALL of her rulings, were "questionable enough" to be considered for review by the Supreme Court.
THAT'S 60%.
I find it very alarming that a person is being considered a "shoo-in" for the Supreme Court, when THE MAJORITY OF HER DECISIONS that were reviewed by the high Court were overturned.
Obviously her reasoning is incompatible with the Court's standards.
Why would anybody want a person on the Court when the Court has already declared her unfit by a simple review of her rulings???
Not to mention that the SCOTUS has overturned 81% now of her racist unconstitutional cases they've heard.
Seems like the woman has NO CLUE what our Constitutions actually says."
That's what you get for listening to Limbaugh: you end up sounding as stupid as he is, and you sound like you're just as much of a liar:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/199955
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/what_percentage_of_sonia_sotomayors_opinions_have.html
"Q: What percentage of Sonia Sotomayor's opinions have been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court?
Have Judge Sotomayor's decisions really been overturned 80 percent of the time as Rush Limbaugh stated on May 26?
A: Of the majority opinions that Judge Sonia Sotomayor has authored since becoming an appellate judge in 1998, three of her appellate opinions have been overturned by the Supreme Court.
Our search for appellate opinions by Sotomayor on the LexisNexis database returned 232 cases. That's a reversal rate of 1.3 percent."
Our search for appellate opinions by Sotomayor on the LexisNexis database returned 232 cases. That's a reversal rate of 1.3 percent."
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How many of those 232 were reviewed by the Supreme Court?
You're using bogus math.