Published May 29, 2009 | 4:19 am
JCN MEMO: Sonia Sotomayor and Legal Realism
TO: JCN Members and Interested Parties
FROM: Wendy E. Long, JCN Counsel
DATE: May 29, 2009
In recent days, the White House has tried to explain away a number of public statements by Judge Sotomayor suggesting that her view of the role of the Court in our society is a fairly radical one, inconsistent with the “rule of law” as we understand it.
The “rule of law” is a principle of American justice, going back to the most ancient roots of Western law. It holds that the rules of a society are definite and knowable by its citizens, and that those rules are applied impartially by judges, who are servants of the law, but are not above it. In other words, the law, and not the judge, makes the rules. This is what Chief Justice John Roberts referred to in his confirmation proceedings when he described himself as a “servant of the law.”
Published May 28, 2009 | 8:18 am
JCN CALLS ON WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY GIBBS TO POST DUKE VIDEO ON WHITE HOUSE WEB SITE AND LET AMERICAN PEOPLE JUDGE
STATEMENT BY WENDY LONG, COUNSEL TO JUDICIAL CONFIRMATION NETWORK
www.judicialnetwork.com
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' comments yesterday that "We can all move past YouTube snippets and half sentences and actually look at the honest-to-God record" raise an important question for Mr. Gibbs. The Duke University comments by Judge Sotomayor are quite clear and unequivocal. Is Mr. Gibbs suggesting that Judge Sotomayor was lying in the tape or that she really didn't mean it?
Published May 28, 2009 | 3:17 am
White House, Schumer Misleading Public and Media Over Sotomayor Liberal Activism-Vetting Process Failed
Statement by Wendy Long, Chief Counsel, Judicial Confirmation Network:
Comments yesterday by the White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and today by Senator Chuck Schumer, that statements made at Duke University by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor in which she said appellate courts should "make policy" were taken out of context are purposely misleading and outright misinformation designed to walk back an obvious vetting problem this White House has become known for. If Mr. Gibbs or Senator Schumer were to read other law review articles written by Judge Sotomayor, her own published word, it is clear and unequivocal that Judge Sotomayor has a long track record of advocating for using courts to make policy and laws. It is obvious that the reason the White House has churned up its spin machine on this is because countless polls consistently show that the American people to do not support judges making policy or law from the bench. The American people have spoken loudly and often on this subject, they want judges who interpret law as made through the people and their elected representatives, not through judges imposing their personal political views from the bench as Judge Sotomayor has consistently advocated.
New JCN Video here:
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Link to polling by Rasmussen
Published May 27, 2009 | 10:14 pm
Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, on nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court:
"Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one's sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.
Published May 26, 2009 | 3:00 am
Memo: Obama Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor
TO: JCN Members and Interested Parties
FROM: Wendy Long, Counsel to Judicial Confirmation Network
DATE: May 26, 2009
- President Obama has threatened to nominate liberal judicial activists who will indulge their left-wing policy preferences instead of neutrally applying the law. In selecting Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee, President Obama has carried out his threat.
- Judge Sotomayor will allow her feelings and personal politics to stand in the way of basic fairness. In a recent case, Ricci v. DeStefano, Sotomayor sided with a city that used racially discriminatory practices to deny promotions to firefighters. The per curiam opinion Sotomayor joined went so far out of its way to bury the firefighters' important claims of unfair treatment that her colleague, Judge Jose Cabranes, a Clinton appointee, chastised her.
- According to Judge Cabranes, Sotomayor's opinion contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims at the core of this case" and its "perfunctory disposition rests uneasily with the weighty issues presented by this appeal." Even the liberal Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen expressed disappointment with the case, stating, "Ricci is not just a legal case but a man who has been deprived of the pursuit of happiness on account of race."
- Sotomayor's terrible decision in Ricci is under review by the Supreme Court and an opinion is expected by the end of June.
- Sotomayor readily admits that she applies her feelings and personal politics when deciding cases. In a 2002 speech at Berkeley, she stated that she believes it is appropriate for a judge to consider their "experiences as women and people of color," which she believes should "affect our decisions." She went on to say in that same speech I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." She reiterated her commitment to that lawless judicial philosophy at Duke Law School in 2005 when she stated that the "Court of Appeals is where policy is made."
- The poor quality of Sotomayor's decisions is reflected in her terrible record of reversals by the Supreme Court.
- Sotomayor is a favorite of far left special interest groups. In addition to her record as a hard left judicial activist, Sotomayor has been recommended for the Supreme Court by Nan Aron of the very liberal Alliance for Justice, who stated in a 2004 memo to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Sotomayor had "been through an initial vetting and fit into the criteria that we believe should be the standard for any Supreme Court justice."
- The White House is sure to argue that Sotomayor is a "bipartisan pick" because Bush 41 appointed her to the district court: President George H.W. Bush nominated Sotomayor in 1991 only because the New York senators had forced on the White House a deal that enabled Senator Moynihan to name one of every four district court nominees in New York. In 1998, 29 Republican senators voted against President Clinton's nomination of Sotomayor to the Second Circuit.
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