At least that’s what it’s looking like, according to the New York Times and the Washington Post. Today Justice Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee drew to a close, and no major bombshells were dropped. A Senate vote is expected in early August.
Update: Gibson Dunn partner Tom Dupree, who served in the Bush II Justice Department and argued before Judge Sotomayor five times, has a nice recap over at the WSJ Law Blog.
We’ll soon learn what the senators think of the prospect of Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. In the meantime, what do you think?
We’ve asked you before for your views on whether Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the Second Circuit should be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In our earlier poll, which received more than 8,000 votes, over 70 percent of you voiced support for a Justice Sotomayor.
Did anything that we learned in the confirmation hearings change your mind? Take our new poll:

We’re going to finish off this live blog of the Sotomayor confirmation hearings with a bang. The last two Senators to ask questions of Sotomayor will be the very experienced Arlen Specter, and the Senator in his first week on the job, Al Franken.
This morning we learned that 70% of Above the Law readers believe that the Senators should be focusing on Sotomayor’s judicial record instead of her previous speeches. But many commenters thought that was a false dichotomy, and that Senators should take into account all of the available evidence and statements.
We also learned that Sotomayor really, really likes Perry Mason.
Check after the jump for the last round of updates from the first round of the Senate confirmation hearing of Sonia Sotomayor.

Continue reading “Two More Senators For Round 1 Questions of Sotomayor”

It’s the third day of the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings and we’re still here. We will be liveblogging until all the Senators on the Judiciary Committee have been given a chance to ask one round of questions. We’re hoping that will be accomplished by lunchtime.
Yesterday, Sotomayor found a bunch of different ways to backtrack from the “wise Latina” comment.
But the real difference between the Republicans and the Democrats during this hearing has been the Republican focus on Sotomayor’s speeches, against the Democratic focus on Sotomayor’s 17 year record on the bench.
Which aspect of Sotomayor’s history should be the focus of the Senators’ questions? On the one hand, focusing on her judicial record seems appropriate when confirming somebody to be a Justice. On the other hand, we’re talking about a person who is asking to be appointed for life to a job from which there is no further promotion. Could her personal views be more indicative of her future judicial philosophy than her past history of moderate jurisprudence? Remember, this is the person that will be replacing David Souter.
Take our reader poll below. After the jump, check out our live blog updates for the rest of the first round of questioning. Highlights will include Arlen Specter (who is used to speaking a lot earlier at these confirmation hearings) and the newest U.S. Senator, Al Franken.

Continue reading “Sonia Sotomayor Day 3: How Many More Questions Could They Possibly Have?”

We hope you’ve been enjoying our liveblogging of Day 2 of the Sotomayor confirmation hearings. If you missed the morning session, you can check it out here.
To bring you up to speed. The “wise Latina” comment has indeed been the big ticket item of the day. Sotomayor has backtracked from it all morning. She stated clearly that she didn’t mean to imply that Latina’s were better at judging than other ethnic groups. She then doubled down and said of the comment: “It was bad.”
Pretty high rhetoric from a potential SCOTUS Justice, don’t you think.
Sotomayor hasn’t apologized for the remark, so there’s still something for Lindsey Graham to do when he gets his turn.
Meanwhile, on the Ricci front, Sotomayor has been sticking to the point that she was simply applying the law and that SCOTUS changed the law when it reversed the Second Circuit’s opinion on that front. So far, the Republican Senators seem massively underwhelmed by that proposition. I don’t recall a Senator asking her flat out if she thought that the test administered to the New Haven firefighters was racist. She probably wouldn’t answer, but isn’t that really the heart of what people want to know about her opinion here?
Coming back from lunch at 2:00 p.m., Chuck Grassley is up first. He should provide the first serious discussion of a woman’s right to choose. But let’s hope he suggests that somebody should hang themselves again.
Check after the jump for live updates of the hearing.

Continue reading “Sotomayor Day 2: The Afternoon Session”

Now it gets fun. Yesterday, we liveblogged the opening statements from the Senate Judiciary Committee and Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Today, it’s time to get real with questions, answers, and more questions.
And we’ll be liveblogging it all for you again.
I’ve done a full preview for non-lawyers over on True/Slant. But regular Above the Law readers should be already prepared for all of the hard hitting substantive questions about constitutional interpretation.
To the extent that our U.S. Senators actually care about constitutional interpretation. It’s much more likely that we are in for a full day of “wise Latina” quips and a whole bunch of talking about one case (Ricci v. DeStefano) from Sotomayor’s 18 year judicial record.
Which is totally fair of course. This is the Senate’s one chance to ask questions of a person who is appointed for life and won’t ever need another promotion.
It should be fun. Check back throughout the day for updates, after the jump.

Continue reading “Sotomayor Confirmation Hearings: Day 2″

After a lunch break, the Senators are back to preening for the cameras, and we’re back to our live blog.
There are four Senators left to speak, including Al Franken. And there will be introductions from Chuckie (Schumer) and a rare Kristen Gillibrand sighting. Then we’ll finally get an opening statement from Sotomayor herself.

Slight change in plans, lets open up a new comment thread for people just coming here for the afternoon. Here’s where we are so far.
2:04: Elie here. I’ll be taking us through the afternoon session. Amy Klobuchar is up next. I wonder if the senior senator from Minnesota is jealous that the junior senator from Minnesota is much more famous? Probably not. Minnesotans are too nice.
2:11: Senator Klobuchar had a pretty good grasp on the personal and jurisprudential history of every other female justice confirmed for the Supreme Court. It’s a short list.
2:14: Senator Ted Kaufman (D-DE) is up now. I already miss Joe Biden.
Check after the jump for comments and more updates.

Continue reading “Sotomayor: The Afternoon Session.”

9:58: Lat here. Testing, testing — is this thing on? This is where we’ll be liveblogging the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor (2d Cir.), nominated to serve as the 111th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Access this post, then refresh your browser and scroll down, to get the latest updates. We will keep on updating, before eventually moving to a fresh post.
10:00: Judge Sotomayor is looking sharp, in a crisp, electric blue suit. She introduces her photogenic and ethnically diverse relatives. Looks like a Benetton ad.
10:05: Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the SJC, walks us through the now familiar details of SS’s biography. He is not particularly articulate today and is stumbling quite a bit. He seems to have a saliva surplus (not a new problem in the U.S. Senate).
Judge Sotomayor is looking impassive — perhaps there is a hint of a Mona Lisa smile, but just a hint — as Sen. Leahy brags about her fabulosity. This is good; a Cheshire cat grin would be inappropriate.
10:12: Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) takes over from Leahy (who used his time to preemptively respond to anticipated Republican attacks on SS).
Can Victor Garber do a southern accent? If so, he should play Sessions in the Lifetime movie of Sonia Sotomayor’s life.
More discussion, including the latest UPDATES, after the jump.

Continue reading “Liveblogging the Sotomayor Hearings: Opening Statements”