Source: http://www.backboneamerica.net/america/2009/07/13/nominee-unfit-for-lifetime-scotus-seat
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 16:05:29+00:00

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============================== COLORADO JUDICIAL NETWORK: VERDICT ON SOTOMAYOR IS "NO"
The Colorado Judicial Network in cooperation with Judicial Confirmation Network (JCN) (www.judicialnetwork.com) today urged Senators to oppose the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, in a summary memo to JCN members and supporters.
"We fully expect Judge Sotomayor to attempt to explain away her record by repeating the White House’s talking points about her newfound commitment to the rule of law and judicial restraint," said JCN Counsel Wendy E. Long. "It would not surprise us if President Obama’s nominee suddenly testifies on the record with words similar to those used by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, two nominees President Obama voted against on the basis of judicial philosophy. Senators must see through this double-talk. She is a judge who believes it is fine to decide cases based not on even-handed application of the laws to all, but based on her own personal views and prejudices."
Gary Marx, JCN Executive Director, said: "Past performance is indicative of future results. Her record of decisions and statements is a far better predictor of what she would do in the future, as a Supreme Court Justice, than any self-serving testimony she may offer this week."
John Andrews, President, Backbone America. Former Colorado Senate President.
Jon Caldara, President, Independence Institute.
Mark Hillman, former State Treasurer.
Jeff Crank, State Director, Americans for Prosperity.
Jim Pfaff, Judicial Confirmation Network Colorado coordinator. former State Director, Americans for Prosperity and former President/CEO, Colorado Family Institute.
This first day of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings is focusing the attention of the press and the public on the important role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional republic and in the lives of Americans.
We have seen enough to conclude that nothing that Judge Sotomayor or her liberal backers say in her hearings this week can alter the significant record before us, and accordingly, we are today asking Senators to vote “no” on her nomination. Far more relevant than whatever she says this week, as a result of White House coaching, is what she has said and done in the past. In short, past performance is indicative of future results. Her record of decisions and statements is a far better predictor of what she would do in the future as a Supreme Court Justice than any self-serving testimony she may offer this week.
Judge Sotomayor’s two decades of speeches, law review articles, legal advocacy, and judicial decisions lead us to conclude that, if she is confirmed, Justice Sotomayor would be a supreme liberal judicial activist, outdoing the Justice she is replacing, David Souter, in this regard. Her view that judges should rely on their own views, instead of the law as written, in deciding cases would take our nation a critical step further away from the Rule of Law and toward the Rule of Nine Lawyers.
According to the latest CNN poll, Judge Sotomayor already has one of the lowest public approval ratings among recent Supreme Court nominees. We believe that if members of the Senate Judiciary Committee ask her fair and objective questions that illuminate her record and give the American public an opportunity to judge it for themselves, an even greater proportion of Americans will agree that she is a liberal judicial activist in the mold that President Obama promised Planned Parenthood when he would appoint judges who decide the “hard” cases based on personal politics and feelings.
· In our country, judges are the servants of a written Constitution (the first one in history, now widely emulated) and the laws we make through our elected representatives. This is the definition of "self-government," or "government by the consent of the governed." So in America, under the "rule of law," judges are bound to apply neutrally the law that is written in the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and laws enacted by representative bodies of the people.
· Judge Sotomayor has repeatedly rejected the notion that justice is blind, instead expressing support for the idea that a judge can put her thumb on the scales of justice, tipping them to the side she prefers – that the law and our courts are meant to benefit people of certain backgrounds over others. For example, she favors racial quotas, and thinks it is fine as a judge to have what the President has called “empathy” for one race and not for others.
· On at least half a dozen occasions over the span of a decade, Judge Sotomayor stated some variation of her view that “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a while male who hasn’t lived that life.” The President and the White House spokesman have tried to say it was a momentary bad choice of words. The record shows this is false; it is her well-considered view.
· In another law review article, Judge Sotomayor argued in support of the philosophy of “legal realism,” which holds that the public has swallowed a “myth” that “law can be certain and stable.” Instead, she thinks that the law is basically unknowable by ordinary citizens and is only whatever biased judges say it is.
· From 1980 to 1992, Judge Sotomayor held a number of leadership positions with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), including member of the Board of Directors, Vice President of Board of Directors, Chair of Litigation Committee, Chair of Education Committee, Special Vice Chair, Second Vice Chair, and First Vice Chair.
· Documents delivered by PRLDEF to the Senate Judiciary Committee confirm that Sotomayor was intimately involved in the Fund’s controversial work, though she has yet to explain the extent of her involvement or details about litigation she oversaw.
· While she was a member of its Board, PRLDEF filed briefs in several high profile abortion cases. The PRLDEF took extreme positions, favoring mandatory public funding of abortion and declaring it to be a fundamental right – positions that, as Americans United for Life has noted, are more extreme than those of Justice Souter, the liberal activist she would replace on the Court.
· The PRLDEF briefs were often co-signed with radical groups, including the World Workers Party, a leading communist organization, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
· Judge Sotomayor rejects the notion that Americans are entitled to equal protection of the laws and instead supports the notion that judges are appointed to represent certain constituencies on the Court.
· In Ricci v. DeStefano, Judge Sotomayor applied her radical political preference for racial quotas to throw Frank Ricci and other firefighters out of court. She buried their claims asking for fair and equal treatment on a promotion exam after the City denied them promotions because not enough minority candidates passed the exam.
· The Supreme Court recently reviewed the Ricci decision. The standard Judge Sotomayor applied in the case was so extreme not even one Justice on the United States Supreme Court agreed with it.
· Judge Sotomayor has shown more hostility toward Americans’ Second Amendment right to bear arms than any judicial nominee in recent history.
· In Maloney v. Cuomo, Judge Sotomayor ignored the very important constitutional Due Process arguments of a New York man who claimed that his Second Amendment right to bear arms was violated by New York state law, concluding with no reasoning whatsoever that the right to bear arms under our Constitution is not a “fundamental right.” She even made this ruling after the U.S. Supreme Court in the D.C. v. Heller decision had ruled that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is a right of individuals and not a group right.
· In another case, U.S. v. Sanchez-Villar, Judge Sotomayor agreed that it was a crime to possess a firearm in New York without even analyzing the argument by Sanchez-Villar that the law violated his Second Amendment right to bear arms.
· Judge Sotomayor’s record on property rights should concern every American who believes that our government’s ability to take private property from one person and give it to another in the name of “public use” is a threat to our liberty and our prosperity.
· In Didden v. Village of Port Chester, Judge Sotomayor sided with a local government that condemned private property for “public use” in what legal scholar Richard Epstein called “about as naked an abuse of government power as could be imagined.” As in Ricci and in Maloney, Judge Sotomayor decided the case in a very short opinion barely analyzing the important constitutional claims concerning the taking of private property.
· In Hayden v. Pataki convicted felons who were in prison sued the state of New York alleging that it violated the federal Voting Rights Act by denying them the right to vote based on their race. Of course, they were not being denied the ability to vote based on their skin color but simply because they were locked up in prison. Judge Cabranes wrote a majority opinion upholding New York’s law on the basis that the Voting Rights Act did not encompass felon disenfranchisement laws such as New York’s. Judge Sotomayor dissented, arguing that the case should have been a clear win for the felons.
· Judge Sotomayor’s record in business cases is troubling and unpredictable, in keeping with her view that the law should not be stable or knowable—a view of the law that should concern every entrepreneur and business person.
· In Dabit v. Merrill Lynch, Sotomayor ignored the clear intent of Congress in passing securities litigation reform, which was designed to preempt abusive state law claims of securities fraud that trial lawyers had been filing with alarming frequency. The Supreme Court reversed her unanimously, enforcing Congress’s clear purpose to preempt such claims and forum shopping.
· She wrote In re Visa Check/Mastermoney in 2001, which affirmed the district court’s certification of a class and made it easier for claimants to bring frivolous lawsuits because “a motion for class certification is not an occasion for examination of the merits of the case.” She later signed on to In re IPO in 2006, where the Second Circuit came to the opposite conclusion. We do not know if she has changed her mind; we only know that she is unpredictable.
· Judge Sotomayor’s behavior as a lawyer, a judge and as a nominee to the Supreme Court reinforce the concern that she considers herself above the law and reveal that neither she nor the White House have the commitment to transparency that President Obama promised during the campaign.
· As a lawyer in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, she ran her own separate law practice on the side, called Sotomayor and Associates. This was prohibited by the rules of the office, according to those who worked there at the time.
· Judge Sotomayor took steps in the Ricci case that are inconsistent with the rules of the Second Circuit in her attempt to sweep the firefighters’ claims under the rug by originally deciding it in an unsigned summary order. She avoided circulating the opinion to other judges such that it might escape their attention, until her fellow judge Jose Cabranes read about the situation in the local newspaper and followed up. Without this happenstance, she would have buried the firefighters’ claims and the case might never have made it to the Supreme Court, which reversed her.
· The White House proudly announced that Judge Sotomayor had delivered her answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s questions in just nine days. It was discovered almost immediately thereafter that Judge Sotomayor had failed to disclose an important memo she wrote for PRLDEF arguing against the death penalty in New York. She did not disclose the memo until JCN brought it to the public’s attention. And after a few more days of examining the nominee’s responses, it became clear she had failed to disclose not just that memo, but a significant amount of information regarding her time with PRLDEF. What has been made publicly available came only after Senator Leahy and Senator Sessions demanded disclosure by the organization itself. But Judge Sotomayor has still never disclosed important information regarding her relationship with that organization.
· Judge Sotomayor has disclosed next to nothing about her time with the Yale Studies in World Public Order. Though the White House highlighted her position as managing editor, they failed to provide the Judiciary Committee with materials that would shed light on the question of whether she agrees with the publication’s mission statement.
In summary, Judge Sotomayor and President Obama share a belief that it is fine for judges to indulge their own political preferences and feelings when making decisions. That belief is demonstrable throughout Judge Sotomayor’s career, in her speeches, in her law review writings, and in her judicial opinions.
We fully expect Judge Sotomayor to attempt to explain away her record by repeating the White House’s talking points about her newfound commitment to the rule of law and judicial restraint. It would not surprise us if President Obama’s nominee suddenly testifies on the record with words similar to those used by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, two nominees President Obama voted against on the basis of judicial philosophy. Senators must see through this double-talk.
Senators and the American public should recognize such a false claim of judicial humility as part of a design to ensure enough votes for confirmation, because the White House has coached her to testify in this manner to appeal to the majority of Americans who believe in judicial restraint and applying the Constitution and Bill of Rights equally to all, as they are written. Nothing that Judge Sotomayor says during one week of hearings could undo years of speeches, writings, and judicial opinions proving that she would continue, in a lifetime appointment to the unreviewable Supreme Court, to undermine judicial restraint or of constitutionally limited government.
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