(Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)
So today is Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s birthday. Happy birthday to the first Hispanic Latina Justice! Her birthday comes on a day that pushes her jurisprudence — and that of the entire “left” of the Supreme Court — into stark relief.
As many Court watchers are aware, today the decision in Department of Homeland Security vs. Thuraissigiam was released. It was a 7-2 decision denying habeas corpus and due process relief to immigrants, with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer concurring in the decision. That’s right, two of the more supposedly staunchly liberal members of the Court agreed with the administration, while Sotomayor penned a pointed dissent.
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This comes right after Sotomayor’s concurrence in DHS v. Regents where she alone refused to dismiss the equal protections concerns of DACA recipients, and well, it really makes you wonder who deserves to be lionized as the liberal anchor of the Court, as a contemporaneous chat with my colleague, Joe Patrice reveals.
And I was not alone in this opinion.
Is RBG still your hero https://t.co/L9G8tatvPa
— Jeremy Corbyn Fisher PricewaterhouseCoopers (@tonykchoi) June 25, 2020
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https://twitter.com/thewillennium/status/1276196960647536640
RBG voted for this just so you know https://t.co/vkrjOsG2fp
— angie jaime (@angiejaime) June 25, 2020
It’s become increasingly clear if liberals want a quick gut-check to see just how bad a decision is, they need to see where Sotomayor voted. And yet, RBG remains the cultural touchstone for what it means to be a liberal. But we know she isn’t perfect, far from it. (Though I think we can all admit that “when there are nine” is a bad ass quote.) For her birthday, I want more cultural ephemera celebrating Sotomayor. I’m here for the Sonia hoops or nail polish. And yes, t-shirts and posters and laptop stickers and all the trinkets that get churned out for RBG. It’s high time pop culture pays attention to who is really holding down the Court.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).