Sonia Sotomayor, almost sure to become the first Hispanic US Supreme Court justice, was expected to face tough questioning yesterday from Republican senators openly skeptical of her impartiality.
The appeals court judge was scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee at 9:30am for the second of at least four days of hearings that are all but certain to lead to her historic confirmation that would also see her become the third woman on the nation’s highest court.
Seven weeks after US President Barack Obama nominated her to the nine-member bench that serves as the final arbiter of the US Constitution, Sotomayor told her critics on Monday that her judicial philosophy is “fidelity to the law.”
But Sotomayor, 55, made no apology for past writings in which she vaunted the merits of bringing personal experience to bear on court cases, which Obama had praised as her “empathy” and Republicans have tarred as bias.
“My personal and professional experiences help me to listen and understand, with the law always commanding the result in every case,” she said, in the highlight of a day-long hearing interrupted four times by shouting protesters.
Sotomayor, whose family hails from the US Caribbean territory of Puerto Rico, also celebrated her rise from a poor childhood in New York City’s hardscrabble Bronx borough to the pinnacle of US judicial life, calling it “uniquely American.”
For much of the day-long hearing, Sotomayor sat quietly, often rewarding her Democratic defenders with smiles and nods as they feuded over her temperament and qualifications with Obama’s Republican critics.
Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, the panel’s chairman, recalled bitter resistance to the first black, Jewish and Catholic Supreme Court nominees, noting today’s “different era” and praising Sotomayor as rigorously fair.
“She understands that there is not one law for one race or another. There is not one law for one color or another. There is not one law for rich and a different one for poor. There is only one law,” the senator from Vermont said.
But the committee’s top Republican, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, warned he would not vote for Sotomayor unless convinced that she would follow the law impartially, without letting personal views decide key cases.
“I will not vote for — no senator should vote for — an individual nominated by any president who believes it is acceptable for a judge to allow their own personal background, gender, prejudices or sympathies to sway their decision in favor of, or against, parties before the court,” Sessions said.
“Call it empathy, call it prejudice or call it sympathy, but whatever it is, it’s not law. In truth, it’s more akin to politics, and politics has no place in the courtroom,” he said.
But her confirmation was virtually assured: Democrats dominate the committee and have, at least on paper, the 60 votes needed to overrun any Republican effort in the Senate to stymie the nomination.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham drew knowing laughter when he told Sotomayor: “Unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re going to get confirmed.”
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
RSS