Supreme Court confirmation hearings are often dismissed as a kind of ritualized theater that reveals little about the judicial philosophy of nominees. But this stereotype is frequently wrong. From David Souter to John Roberts, many nominees have tended to reveal more of themselves than they expect.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor may have been something of an exception. Like previous nominees, during her confirmation hearings she displayed some aspects of her judicial philosophy — but perhaps not all of them. Adopting a trope more often associated with conservatives than liberals, she said repeatedly that judges should simply apply the law, not legislate from the bench. “My judicial philosophy,” she declared in her opening statement, is simple: “fidelity to the law. The task of a judge is not to make law. It is to apply the law.” And as if to dispel any impression that this was rhetorical boilerplate, Sotomayor returned to the same theme throughout the hearings.
