Sotomayor hearings: Sessions comes out swinging

Much of the speculation surrounding the Sotomayor hearings has centered on the role that would be played by Sen. Jeff Sessons, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

This is Sessions’ first confirmation hearing of any kind as the top Republican, and several senators may take their cues from him. But he’s walking a fine line.

Republicans are concerned that coming out too aggressively against Sotomayor, a history-making nominee as the first Latina named to the high court, will damage the party with Latino and other minority voters — the same demographics the GOP needs to court to regain its national footing.

Sessions, a former U.S. attorney, is an unlikely face for any Republican rebranding effort, however. He’s a conservative, old-school Alabaman — and he sounds like it. The contrast between Sessions’ antebellum accent and Sotomayor’s nasal New York drawl will make for compelling television, as well as serve as a potent symbol of where this nation was and where it’s going.

But Sessions signaled this morning, as the hearings got underway, that’s he ready to be the Republican point man for criticizing the nominee. He called Sotomayor’s stated belief, expressed several times in speeches, that life experiences affect her judging “shocking and offensive to me.”

He mocked the president’s “empathy” standard for selecting a nominee, questioned her role as a board member of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund in the 1980s and puzzled over the her court’s opinion in the Ricci vs. New Haven firefighter case, in which her three-judge panel sided with minority applicants who performed less favorably on promotion tests than their white colleagues. That decision was reversed by the Supreme Court.

“It seems to me that in Ricci, Judge Sotomayor’s empathy for one group of firefighters turned out to be prejudice against the others,” Sessions said.

Sessions is likely to begin questioning Sotomayor in earnest Tuesday morning.

-- James Oliphant

Photo: Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor listens to opening statements by ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions, show on video monitor.  Credit: Mario Tama / Getty Images

Comments

[Angel]

The means justify the ends; And, vice versa is wrong. I feel that I would vote no if I was a Senator, because Sotomayor has proven she is incapable, and/or unwilling, to do what the job requires. That job being to 'judge' based upon whether the constitution allows the case in question or not. 'Empathy' may be great for a lawyer, however, it is fundamentally wrong for a Supreme Court Judge. I think this is why the Founding Fathers actually made it so even those outside of 'law' can be Supreme Court Judges.

[Tom]

In the Ricci firefighter case, Sotomayor simply followed existing law; the Supreme Court in overturning that decision created new precedent (which is fine for the Supreme Court to do, but it is not the job of a lower court; Sotomayor rightly followed precedent in this case.) Further, in 96 cases alleging racial discrimination, Sotomayor and the judicial panel rejected the claim of racial discrimination roughly 78 times. Sotomayor also wrote three opinions favoring anti-abortion protesters and anti-abortion policies. There is nothing in the actual record of her judicial performance that justifies any of the overblown insinuations from Republicans. Hispanics and women should rightly be incensed at the way Republicans are smearing and denigrating the hard work, intelligence, and honorable service of this judge.