About Sonia Sotomayor

Published July 28, 2009 | 11:52 am

Zogby poll finds strong opposition to Sotomayor confirmation

TO:         JCN MEMBERS AND INTERESTED PARTIES
FROM:     WENDY E. LONG, COUNSEL
GARY A. MARX, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
DATE:     JULY 28, 2009
RE:         ZOGBY POLL FINDS STRONG OPPOSITION TO SOTOMAYOR
CONFIRMATION

A new Zogby/O'Leary Report Poll confirms what JCN has been saying for a long time:  The more the American public learns about Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the more they will agree that she is a liberal judicial activist who will decide the "hard" cases based on personal politics and feelings.

According to the Zogby poll released Monday, less than half of Americans (49%) support Judge Sotomayor's confirmation and an equal number oppose it.  Hispanic voters are roughly split on Sotomayor, 47% in favor and 43% against, while Independent voters oppose her confirmation (55% to 44%) as do small business owners (52% to 42%).

Gun owners - who had considerable reason to oppose Judge Sotomayor after she refused to tell Senators the right to bear arms is a "fundamental right" - oppose her confirmation by more than a 2-1 margin, 67% to 30%.  [The poll was conducted July 21-24, surveyed 4,470 voters, and has a margin-of-error of plus-or-minus 1.5 percentage points.]

These and other poll results show an overwhelming level of opposition to a Supreme Court nominee who, at the time of her nomination, was expected by some to be a shoo-in because of her life story and background.  As Gallup announced recently in an analysis of a separate poll, "[w]ith only 9% of Americans expressing no opinion about Sotomayor's fate, the lowest seen for any nominee, she now garners more opposition than any Supreme Court nominee of the past two decades, except for the unsuccessful Harriet Miers."

In contrast, "[s]upport for [Samuel] Alito's confirmation grew after widely televised confirmation hearings," said Gallup, with 54% of Americans expressing support and only 30% opposing.  A poll conducted by Gallup after the Senate confirmation hearings for John Roberts found that 60% of Americans supported his confirmation and only 26% opposed.

President Obama promised he would appoint a Supreme Court justice who would decide the "hard" cases by relying on personal feelings and politics.  He fulfilled that promise by nominating Judge Sotomayor, whose record of speeches, law review articles, and judicial decisions demonstrates that she and President Obama are on the same page when it comes to liberal judicial activism.

Poll after poll has shown that the American people reject that lawless view of the judiciary, and that they embrace the rule of law and the view that judges should be more like neutral umpires, saying what the law is and not what they think it should be.  Through the confirmation process, and the efforts of groups like JCN to bring much needed attention to the process, the American people have now learned enough about Judge Sotomayor to conclude that she is unworthy of their endorsement because she rejects their traditional conception of the judicial role.

The public's views on this important issue are obvious, which is why Judge Sotomayor and her Democratic boosters went out of their way during her public hearings to pretend (incredibly) that they have discovered the virtue of judicial restraint and the rule of law.
Senators Orrin Hatch and Charles Grassley today voted against the approval of a Supreme Court nominee for the first time in their long Senate careers.  Their votes reflect the strong view of the American people in favor of judges ruling impartially based on the law, not on their personal views, experiences, and opinions.  And though a final vote on the nomination has not been scheduled, already 18 Senators have announced that they will vote against Judge Sotomayor - more than any Democratic Supreme Court nominee since 1916.

Despite her life story, the historic nature of her nomination as a female Hispanic, the support of a popular President and an overwhelmingly Democratic Senate, and widely publicized confirmation hearings during which she claimed to turn her back on decades of prior statements and writings, the public has not been fooled into supporting a judicial activist.  To the contrary, efforts to educate the public and motivate thousands of Americans to get engaged in the battle over judicial philosophy are paying off; the cost of nominating and confirming judicial activists is the highest it has been in our lifetimes.

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What Others Are Saying

  • "President Obama abided by his dismal and lawless ‘empathy’ standard and, in his selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, picked a nominee whom he can count on to indulge her own liberal biases. Sotomayor’s outrageous shenanigans in Ricci v. DeStefano—the case now awaiting a ruling by the Supreme Court in the next four weeks or so—shows what the Obama “empathy” standard means in practice: disfavoring politically incorrect litigants, in this case firefighters who devoted their spare time and their scarce resources to study hard for and pass a promotional exam. See here for more on Sotomayor’s incoherent account of her selective empathy, here for her sorry record of Supreme Court reversals (a record made worse by the Court’s recent reversal of her ruling in the Riverkeepers case), and here for Jeffrey Rosen’s recounting of liberal concerns that Sotomayor just isn’t smart enough."
    Ed Whelan, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center
  • "The problem will soon arise, as it inevitably does for any judge in a court of last resort, of what happens in a particular case when the second factor of limited judicial role impartiality conflicts with empathy? When push comes to shove, will a Justice Sotomayor favor individuals over institutions, employees over corporations, the poor over the rich? My hope is that she will recognize that a judge is supposed to be objective, impartial, free from bias. When it comes to judging, impartiality must trump empathy."
    Justice Raoul Cantero, former Florida Supreme Court Justice
  • "For all the President’s talk of finding ‘common ground,’ this appointment completely contradicts that hollow promise. Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy undermines common ground. She is a radical pick that divides America. She believes the role of the Court is to set policy which is exactly the philosophy that led to the Supreme Court turning into the National Abortion Control Board denying the American people to right to be heard on this critical issue. This appointment would provide a pedestal for an avowed judicial activist to impose her personal policy and beliefs onto others from the bench at a time when the Courts are at a crossroad and critical abortion regulations – supported by the vast majority of Americans – like partial-birth abortion and informed consent laws lie in the balance."
    Dr. Charmaine Yoest, Americans United for Life President & CEO
  • "President Obama's choice of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the U. S. Supreme Court is consistent with his ideological view supporting Supreme Court justices that rule based on personal feelings and political agenda, rather than a strict and disciplined adherence to the rule of law. While, as a woman who has been a lawyer for almost 25 years, I applaud his choice of a woman jurist for a seat on our nation's highest court, this does not allay my concerns about the impact this appointment will have on Supreme Court jurisprudence. It is imperative that our next Supreme Court Justice rule based on the law as it stands, blind to the emotional, cultural, or political appeal of the issues presented."
    Leslie Hiner, Freedom for Educational Choice