SOTOMAYOR - Page 1

10) SOTOMAYOR: ADMITS MAKING ACTIVIST POLICY FROM THE BENCH

In a 2005 panel discussion at Duke University, Sotomayor told students that the federal Court of Appeals is where "policy is made." She said the "Court of Appeals is where policy is made. And I know, and I know, that this is on tape, and I should never say that. Because we don't 'make law,' I know. [audience laughter] Okay, I know. I know. I'm not promoting it, and I'm not advocating it. I'm, you know. [audience laughter] Having said that, the Court of Appeals is where, before the Supreme Court makes the final decision, the law is percolating. Its interpretation, its application." As a judicial activist, she jokingly admits "making policy" from the bench, based on feelings or empathy or judicial precedent, not laws passed by Congress, and so she assumes the power of legislature, to make policy, legislating from the bench.

9) SOTOMAYOR: PRO-ABORTION-SUPPORTS ROE V. WADE

Although she ruled to uphold the longstanding "Mexico City Policy" which had limited funds for abortions performed overseas (until President Obama struck down that policy, now fully funding abortions overseas with our taxes), Sotomayor stands squarely in the camp of supporting and upholding the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized child killing across America and cost 50,000,000 children their lives.

Furthermore, Rev. Rob Schenck of The National Clergy Council now reports that Sotomayor was or is an active board member of a group called the "Childbirth Connection" that advocates for "reproductive rights of women," which is generally a code word for abortion on demand, including partial birth abortion, which Sotomayor has never publicly opposed. Since I was born to a single mom who courageously gave me up for adoption, and I was adopted at age three by a Christian family, I'm passionately pro-life.

8) SOTOMAYOR: ANTI-GUN, ANTI-WEAPON, ANTI- 2nd AMENDMENT

In her ruling to allow government to ban privately owned weapons belonging to New York citizens, Sonia Sotomayor wrote in Maloney v. Cuomo: "The Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right . . . not upon that of the state." Since her crazy reading of the 2nd Amendment only forbids Congress from seizing your guns, the New York State Assembly was fully authorized to ban nunchuks, or seize ANY AND ALL of your weapons, according to Sotomayor's anti-liberty reasoning. But as a former military distinguished marksman and former captain of my rifle team at a New York State high school, I care about protecting our right to bear arms.

7) SOTOMAYOR: ANTI-TEN COMMANDMENTS, BUT PRO-MUSLIM?

ACLJ Attorney Jay Sekulow said of Sotomayor: "She is left in judicial philosophy, ranges much further left than Justice Ginsburg or Justice Souter . . . I just had a case where the Court was unanimous, it was involving the 10 commandments issue, and the court was unanimous 9 to 0, but I would not expect that if Judge Sotomayor was confirmed, that it would probably have been 8 to 1. She has a very, very strict view of church-state separation, and she was aggressive on this idea of a 'living constitution.'" Meanwhile she ruled one Muslim prisoner had a right to receive the Eid ul Fitr feast (a Muslim holiday meal) in his prison cell, and another Muslim prisoner had a right to access a Muslim chaplain, which is fine if she treats other faiths equally. But I personally suspect Sotomayor would rule to disallow public prayers offered "in Jesus name" but allow prayers to Allah, just like Obama's other judicial nominee David Hamilton.

6) SOTOMAYOR: SAVIOR OF THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF WOMEN

NOW President Kim Gandy quickly endorsed Sotomayor, saying: "This morning we will celebrate, and this afternoon NOW will launch our 'Confirm Her' campaign to ensure the swift confirmation of the next Supreme Court Justice." There's no way this liberal group would endorse Sotomayor unless she were pro-lesbian and pro-abortion, as Gandy openly advocates on the NOW web-site.

5) SOTOMAYOR: OVERRULED 33 OF 44 VOTES BY SUPREME COURT

Sotomayor has had 5 decisions reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, 3 of which have been reversed. One of these was her aggressive pro-environmental anti-energy decision, another was her aggressive pro-litigation anti-business decision, which was overturned unanimously. She has carried only 11 of 44 possible votes during those cases. Chief Justice Roberts once stated that her method of reading the statute in question "flies in the face of the statutory language." Dean Mat Staver of Liberty Law School cites these reasons to oppose Sotomayor, saying, "No one ever expected President Barack Obama to nominate someone who respects the original intent of the Constitution."

4) SOTOMAYOR: FAVORITISM BY RACE OR GENDER, NOT LAW

Sotomayor told the Berkeley Law School: "Our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging . . .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." It is no surprise, therefore, she ruled against white Firefighters of New Haven, throwing out the results of a promotion exam because almost no minorities qualified. She denied promotion for the white firefighters who performed well on the exam, and gave minorities who failed the exam favorable consideration toward promotion. Sotomayor promotes aggressive affirmative action, promoting race or gender, not merit. The U.S. Supreme Court reviewed this case in April 2009, and is expected to overturn her again.

3) SOTOMAYOR: FAVORS INTERNATIONAL LAW OVER AMERICAN LAW

Opposing a U.S. Congressional bill that would forbid activist judges from citing international law (instead of applying American law) in their decisions, Sotomayor wrote the controversial introduction for The International Judge, a book that promotes, in her words, "developing an international rule of law and institution-building" and idealizes the "pioneers who work tirelessly to bring these institutions from their incipience to their maturity." No doubt she will vote with Justice Ginsberg, who believes American judges should sometimes look toward international law rather than the U.S. Constitution.

2) SOTOMAYOR: EVEN THE LIBERALS CALL HER A BULLY

Her own former clerk, liberal Jeffrey Rosen, now legal affairs editor for The New Republic, said she has "has an inflated opinion of herself" and is "kind of a bully on the bench." Another clerk who worked on the 2nd Circuit said she's: "not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench . . .She has an inflated opinion of herself, and is domineering during oral arguments, but her questions aren't penetrating and don't get to the heart of the issue."

1) SOTOMAYOR: BASEBALL BIAS FOR NEW YORK YANKEES!

As a native of South Bronx, Sotomayor's hidden home-town bias became manifest in her love for the New York Yankees, judicially favoring her "Bronx Bombers" over teams from all other cities. No kidding! When ruling to end the 1995 baseball strike, she sided with the player's union against team owners (who sought parity among all teams with an talent-sharing salary cap). Instead Sotomayor created bias in favor of rich teams who can afford to buy up all the good free agents. So when the New York Yankees hogged 4 titles and 6 pennants in the 8 years after her ruling, with payrolls averaging three times most other team salaries, you can blame Sotomayor for creating that competitive imbalance. I understand why Yankees fans might celebrate her promotion to the Supreme Court, but baseball fans from all other cities should complain loudly against her confirmation!

SitasMom,
We don't get to make the decision, you need to express your concerns to your representative.
I don't care for her much myself but not for the same reasons as you.

Moons.

My representatives and senators will be voting   NO  WAY   but it wont do any good...the left radicals outnumber.

the best we can do is beg our representatives for a filibuster......but sessions is to liberal and wont let it happen.

 I know this is a total waste of broadband, but I am addressing this to the more moderate board members.  First, I will state that I am as adamantly pro choice as you are anti-abortion, and I am also an American, and I vote, every time.  Take a moment to look at the death rate from botched abortions in countries where abortion is illegal, or in this country prior to Roe v. Wade.  These are living adult women, many are parents of young children who literally cannot feed another mouth, and personally, I think their lives are of more importance then a fetus.  I refuse to let your religion control my life, ever.

Second, I will point out that Obama won the last election handily, so the rabid religious right wing in this country is, at least for now, SOL.  I haven't been too keen about Republican appointees in the recent past, but I never ranted on a web site about them.  If you think there was no litmus test for some of these positions, your are simply wrong.  

My husband is a litigator for the past 25+ years, and he says that Sotomayor is absolutely correct on her statement about the Federal Court of Appeals.  If you have the patience and are open minded enought to read a site that i imagine you do not usually follow, look at this link.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/01/sotomayor_was_right_appellate_judges_do_make_policy/

I include the text...

Sotomayor Was Right: Appellate Judges Do "Make Policy"

By Eric Muller - June 1, 2009, 10:37AM
At Duke Law School back in 2005, Judge Sonia Sotomayor said that "the court of appeals is where policy is made." Conservative pundits have immediately jumped on these words as proof that Judge Sotomayor is an "activist" who will legislate her own preferences on us all from the Supreme Court bench.

This is nonsense. Appellate judges do "make policy," and it's an uncontroversial and even necessary piece of their job description.

She uttered these words during a panel discussion for the benefit of Duke law students, many of them aspiring law clerks to judges around the country. One such student asked her how trial courts are different from appellate courts. Judge Sotomayor replied that whereas trial courts are concerned with the specific facts of the cases before them, appellate courts are "where policy is made."

A layman might think the word "policy" here means something like "whether it would be a good idea for the federal government to fund abortions for poor women" - something that our elected representatives are supposed to decide.

But lawyers (and law students ) know that "policy" can also be a way of summing up a practical and unremarkable difference between trial and appellate courts.

The federal courts of appeals are, in practical terms, our courts of last resort. The Supreme Court gets to choose its cases, and chooses only around eighty each year from the thousands presented to them. What this means is that once a federal appellate court decides a case, it's over. Sure, there's a remote chance that the Supreme Court will decide to hear it, but you'd probably have better luck buying a lottery ticket.

This gives our federal appellate courts a special responsibility. They're the ones who have to keep the law orderly. Unlike trial courts, whose decisions other courts are not required to follow, federal appellate courts control the law in a whole region of the country. When Judge Sotomayor's Second Circuit Court of Appeals speaks on a point of law, it becomes the rule throughout New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.

That's some populous terrain, with a lot of federal trial judges. And they can be an unruly bunch. Often their decisions - on all manner of

 Very annoying, forget the page limits.  The rest of the article follows...

That's some populous terrain, with a lot of federal trial judges. And they can be an unruly bunch. Often their decisions - on all manner of things, including arcane stuff like the rules of evidence and the rules of court procedure - conflict with one another. It is the responsibility of appellate courts to bring order to that chaos - to make sure that the trial courts aren't getting too far out of line. To do this, they can't just think about the specific facts in the case before them. They have to reflect on what the consequences will be in other cases and other contexts. They have to think about how hard or easy a rule will be to apply. They have to make a rule that will apply generally, not a rule just for one case.

In other words, they "make policy." It's not the sort of policy that Congress makes. But it's policy.

The Duke law students tittered when Judge Sotomayor claimed a "policy"-making role for appellate judges with the cameras rolling. They surely knew how easy it would be for unfair or uninformed observers outside the walls of a law school to jump to a wrong and embarrassing meaning.

It turns out their nervous laughter was well-founded; that is just what unfair and uninformed observers are now doing.

But what Judge Sotamayor said to those law students was absolutely right. Appellate judges make policy. And they do so without stepping on Congress's toes, or ours.


**
Eric Muller is the Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor in Jurisprudence and Ethics at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Geez.  Whenever I need a good laugh I just think the word Liberal.  Obama will be the death of this country.  How many people on this board regret voting for our new CZAR?  4 more years and we will get a REAL CHANGE. 

 So, I strongly suspect that you still think you know more about law and government then a Distinguished Professor of Law and an experienced litigator, but I think you are being manipulated by some very nasty bigots who are also very sore losers.

Sotomayer is a very well respected jurist.  There are plenty of Republicans who will vote to confirm her because she is a very good candidate.  You are aware, I hope, that President George Bush Sr. appointed Sotomayer to the US District Court.  And I quote Rep Senator  Al D'Amato... [D]uring the September 30, 1997, Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the confirmation of several judicial nominations, D'Amato stated: "I predicted to this committee, almost five years ago, that Judge [Sonia] Sotomayor would be an exemplary, outstanding justice. She has demonstrated that, repeatedly. She has shown compassion, wisdom, one of the great intellects on the court."