America's Voice Blog

Posted 07/13/09 at 11:44am

Hearings for Judge Sotomayor Commence: Which Way Forward for the GOP and Latino Voters?

Today kicks of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor. In question is whether Sotomayor has what it takes to become the 111th Supreme Court Justice of the United States, as well as the first Hispanic and third female to serve in the nation's highest court of law. Stay tuned to watch it live right here:

 

 

As we noted last month:

In case you missed it, the race-based attacks on Presiden't Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, got very, very ugly.

Media Matters has chronicled the attacks from their news watch-dog perspective here. The group continues to point out the failure of the reporting on these attacks to put Sotomayor's comments in context. She has specifically been attacked for comments made in 2001 that her experience as a "wise Latina" would give her valuable experience as a judge. According to Media Matters:

When Sotomayor made the "wise Latina" comment, she was specifically discussing the importance of judicial diversity in determining "race and sex discrimination cases." Additionally, conservatives, including Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, have each acknowledged the significant impact their background and personal experiences have had on their judicial thinking.

Well, judging by today's opening statements from the Committee, it appears that Senate Republicans are unlikely to desist from their outlandish racial attacks on Judge Sotomayor, despite the GOP's rapidly-declining popularity with Latino voters. This decline is certainly linked to continued extreme Republican rhetoric on immigration. 

CNN Politics reports:

However, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the committee's ranking Republican, said Sotomayor represents the kind of activist judge that threatens the traditional foundation of the U.S. legal system.

Sessions, a former prosecutor and attorney general in his home state, challenged the attribute of empathy cited by President Obama in nominating Sotomayor.

"Call it empathy, call it prejudice, call it sympathy -- whatever it is, it is not law," Sessions said.

As blogger Ian Millhiser argues in "Sessions Uses Sotomayor Nomination To Continue His Lifelong Crusade Against Civil Rights," it's interesting that the GOP has chosen Senator Jeff Sessions, who's been particularly incendiary on immigration, to lead the charge on Sotomayor's alleged bigotry:

As a federal prosecutor, Sessions conducted a tenuous criminal investigation into voting rights advocates that registered African-Americans to vote, an investigation that culminated in an unsuccessful prosecution against a former aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Additionally, an African-American attorney who once worked for Sessions testified at his hearings that Sessions said that he "used to think [the KKK] were OK" until he found out some of them were "pot smokers." The same attorney also recalled being called "boy" by Sessions and being told to "be careful what you say to white folks" after Sessions overheard him chastising a white secretary.

America's Voice released a report on Sen. Sessions back in June, which lays bare his extreme views on immigration.

Finally, in case there's any doubt that Sotomayor's confirmation process-- and the racial rhetoric that is tossed around by Republican Senators during it-- is of great interest to Latinos and Spanish-speaking Americans, veteran journalist Maribel Hastings will be featuring daily Spanish-language news roundups over at her new immigration news portal, MaribelHastings.com.

Today the New York Times reported in "G.O.P. Senators Are Set to Question Judge's Impartiality:"

When Bob Schieffer of "Face the Nation" asked Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the committee, whether he would stop the nomination or would just see it as "an educational moment," Mr. Sessions said: "Well, I hope it is an educational moment."

 So do we, Senator, so do we.

 

 

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