Top Republicans on Judiciary Panel Oppose Sotomayor
The top Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, announced today that they will not support Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court.
Sessions, the ranking member of the committee, explained his decision in a column published today in USA Today.
"I don't believe that Judge Sotomayor has the deep-rooted convictions necessary to resist the siren call of judicial activism," he wrote. "She has evoked its mantra too often."
Grassley, no. two Republican on the committee, also said he remained unconvinced Sotomayor could set aside personal biases and prejudices to decide cases impartially, the Associated Press reports.
With some Republicans already supporting Sotomayor's nomination, Sessions acknowledged in his column that the Senate will likely confirm her as the first Latina to the high court. The judiciary committee will vote on her nomination tomorrow, while the full Senate should vote on President Obama's first Supreme Court by the end of next week.
Sessions states in his column that during her confirmation hearings, Sotomayor "brushed aside her repeated 'wise Latina' comment as 'a rhetorical flourish,' and championed judicial restraint." However, he said, her repudiation of judicial activism came across as disingenuous.
He pointed to three rulings from her record as a judge to make his point: the 2008 Ricci case involving the New Haven firefighteres denied a promotion because of race, a 2006 private property decision and a 2009 Second Amendment decision.
"Each was contrary to the Constitution," Sessions wrote. "Each was decided in a brief opinion, short on analysis. And each was consistent with liberal political thought."