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.
Tag Archives: sotomayor
The Movie That Made a Supreme Court Justice
The Movie That Made a Supreme Court Justice Around the time that Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor was entering college, the man who would eventually become her husband took her to see a film by Sidney Lumet. It was “12 Angry Men,” from 1957, about a jury deliberating on the case of a young man accused […]
Handicapping Obama’s Supreme Court Picks
Handicapping Obama’s Supreme Court Picks Sources numerous and equally dismissable report that President Obama has a op Tenlist of potential SCOTUS candidates to replace the outgoing John Paul Stevens. Since no one can honestly claim to know what the president is thinking, here my stab at his top ten (after conferring with a few TNL […]
Five Supreme Court Cases to Watch This Term
Sotomayor poised to take oath as Supreme Court justice
Senate confirms Sotomayor for Supreme Court
Cricket, Ivy League classmates startled student Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor spent her first week at Princeton University obsessing over the sound of a cricket. Growing up in New York City, her only notion of this insect was Jiminy from "Pinocchio." She tore her dorm room apart looking for the critter every night. PRINCETON, New Jersey (CNN) — Sonia Sotomayor spent her first week at Princeton University obsessing over the sound of a cricket.
Sotomayor Keeps Her Cool on the Senate Hot Seat
Whatever Sonia Sotomayor does to reward herself a glass of wine, an ice cream sundae, a bubble bath surely she must be giving herself a small pat on the back after surviving her first day of cross-examination by the Senate Judiciary Committee without any kind of gaffe. Despite the best efforts of some Republicans to elicit a hot-tempered response, the Supreme Court nominee answered every question in the same deliberate, dulcet tones that seemed to lull her opposition into, if not complacency, then at least resignation
Why the Controversy over Judge Sotomayor’s ‘Wise Latina’ Remark?
Washington politics may not be good at producing health-care reform, but it’s great at creating catchy new lingo. Getting “Borked.” “Hanging chads.” “Lipsticks on pit bulls.” The latest is “wise Latina,” two words that have been repeated ad nauseam since the middle of May, when conservatives started flogging the text of a 2001 speech given by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor at the University of California, Berkeley. In that talk on the subject of a Latino presence in the American judiciary Sotomayor now famously said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Since May 14, when the New York Times posted the full text of the speech online, a vaudevillian assortment of right-wing politicians and commentators have taken this remark as evidence that Sotomayor is a racist who will pursue an unknown agenda once ensconced in that great neoclassical retirement home known as the U.S