Tag Archives: Sonia Sotomayor

February 28, 2013 · 1:13 PM

Sotomayor Leads Liberal Justices In Defending The Voting Rights Act

Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor is acknowledged by President Barack Obama at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 34th Annual Awards Gala at the Washington Convention Center, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2011 in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor is acknowledged by President Barack Obama at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 34th Annual Awards Gala at the Washington Convention Center, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2011 in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

TPMDC

Seemingly aware that they were outnumbered and fighting an uphill battle, the four liberal justices on the Supreme Court defended the Voting Rights Act during Supreme Court oral arguments Wednesday with a mix of sharp questions, appeals to history, and indirect rejoinders to the more conservative justices.

All four of them participated actively in oral arguments. None was more emphatic than Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The Obama-appointed justice asked the first question of the day. She hammered Burt Rein, the lawyer representing the challengers, Shelby County of Alabama, over its record of discrimination. The county contends that Section 5 is unfair to its residents and other jurisdictions that it requires to obtain federal pre-clearance before changing their voting laws.

“Assuming I accept your premise, and there’s some question about that, that some portions of the South have changed, your county pretty much hasn’t,” Sotomayor said of Shelby County, which is 90 percent white. “In the period we’re talking about, it has many more discriminating -­- 240 discriminatory voting laws that were blocked by Section 5 objections. … You may be the wrong party bringing this.”

“Why would we vote in favor of a county whose record is the epitome of what caused the passage of this law to start with?” she asked, wondering why the Court should invalidate Section 5 if, as she argued, any formula would cover Shelby County. “Discrimination is discrimination.”

While Section 5 was taking a beating at the hands of the conservative justices, the four liberal-leaning justices targeted various audiences. Sometimes they played to each other, sometimes to the conservative justices they hoped to sway, sometimes to the future Court, sometimes to the public audience.

Justice Stephen Breyer several times tried to needle the lawyers defending the Voting Rights Act into addressing conservatives’ concerns. Other times, he did so himself.

“The disease is still there in the state,” he said. “Of course this is aimed at states. What do you think the Civil War was about? Of course it was aimed at treating some states differently than others.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg took the liberty of knocking down what she viewed as a straw man argument by attorney Rein.

“Mr. Rein, you keep emphasizing over and over again in your brief registration and you said it a couple of times this morning,” she said. “Congress was well aware that registration was no longer the problem. This legislative record is replete with what they call second generation devices. Congress said up front: We know that the registration is fine. That is no longer the problem. But the discrimination continues in other forms.”

Justice Elena Kagan twice said the Section 5 coverage formula has been working “pretty well” when it comes to snuffing out voter discrimination where it’s most likely to emanate. When Rein argued that it’s the courts, not Congress, who should determine whether the coverage formula is legitimate, she sounded shocked.

“That’s a big new power you’re giving us,” Kagan said, “that we have the power to determine when racial discrimination has ended. I did not think we had that power.”

In the final moments of the argument, Sotomayor, apparently taken aback by Justice Antonin Scalia’s statement that Section 5 is a “perpetuation of racial entitlement,” put the question to Shelby County’s lawyer.

“Do you think that the right to vote is a racial entitlement in Section 5?” she asked Rein. When he dodged, she asked him again: “I asked a different question. Do you think Section 5 was voted for because it was a racial entitlement?” He dodged again.

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February 27, 2013 · 6:12 PM

Scalia: Voting Rights Act Is ‘Perpetuation Of Racial Entitlement’

 

Caricature - Antonin Scalia

Well, it’s a sure bet that Justice Antonin Scalia will not be on the “pro-voting rights” side of the judicial debate…

Think Progress

There were audible gasps in the Supreme Court’s lawyers’ lounge, where audio of the oral argument is pumped in for members of the Supreme Court bar, when Justice Antonin Scalia offered his assessment of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. He called it a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.”

The comment came as part of a larger riff on a comment Scalia made the last time the landmark voting law was before the justices. Noting the fact that the Voting Rights Act reauthorization passed 98-0 when it was before the Senate in 2006, Scalia claimed four years ago that this unopposed vote actually undermines the law: “The Israeli supreme court, the Sanhedrin, used to have a rule that if the death penalty was pronounced unanimously, it was invalid, because there must be something wrong there.”

That was an unusual comment when it was made, but Scalia’s expansion on it today raises concerns that his suspicion of the Act is rooted much more in racial resentment than in a general distrust of unanimous votes. Scalia noted when the Voting Rights Act was first enacted in 1965, it passed over 19 dissenters. In subsequent reauthorizations, the number of dissenters diminished, until it passed the Senate without dissent seven years ago. Scalia’s comments suggested that this occurred, not because of a growing national consensus that racial disenfranchisement is unacceptable, but because lawmakers are too afraid to be tarred as racists. His inflammatory claim that the Voting Rights Act is a “perpetuation of racial entitlement” came close to the end of a long statement on why he found a landmark law preventing race discrimination in voting to be suspicious.

It should be noted that even one of Scalia’s fellow justices felt the need to call out his remark. Justice Sotomayor asked the attorney challenging the Voting Right Act whether he thought voting rights are a racial entitlement as soon as he took the podium for rebuttal.

A transcript of the oral argument will be available soon, and we will post Scalia’s quote in its full context. We will also post audio of Scalia’s words when they become available.

Here is the transcript.

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February 25, 2013 · 4:10 PM

Sonia Sotomayor Condemns Prosecutor’s Racially Charged Question

 

 

Sonia Sotomayor Prosecutor

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor answers a question at Chicago Public Library in Chicago, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013. Sotomayor is on a tour promoting her new memoir “My Beloved World.” The book, which was released earlier this month, offers a revealing look at her life before she joined the Supreme Court. It is unusually personal for a justice. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

I’ve seen and heard about this sort of conduct happening more times than I care to remember…

The Huffington Post

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Monday condemned racially charged language used by a federal prosecutor in Texas.

The justice, appointed to the court by President Barack Obama in 2009, took the relatively unusual step of writing a statement to accompany the nine-member Supreme Court’s announcement that it would not take up a criminal case.

Sotomayor took issue with the unidentified prosecutor who, while questioning an African-American defendant in a drug case, asked: “You’ve got African-Americans, you’ve got Hispanics, you’ve got a bag full of money. Does that tell you – a light bulb doesn’t go off in your head and say, this is a drug deal?”

The first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, Sotomayor wrote that the prosecutor had “tapped a deep and sorry vein of racial prejudice that has run through the history of criminal justice in our nation.”

The question was “pernicious in its attempt to substitute racial stereotype for evidence,” she added. Sotomayor also accused the Obama administration of playing down the issue.

The defendant in the case, Bongani Charles Calhoun, wanted the Supreme Court to order a retrial because he said his right to a fair trial was violated when the question was asked. He was convicted of three offenses over his role in a drug conspiracy.

Initially, the administration declined to file a response to Calhoun’s claim, indicating government lawyers did not think it merited attention.

“I hope never to see a case like this again,” Sotomayor wrote.

Justice Stephen Breyer signed on to Sotomayor’s statement.

The court did not take up the case on Monday, because Calhoun had failed to raise his argument earlier in the appeals process, as required under the law, Sotomayor wrote.

At trial, Calhoun’s argument was that, although he was present when federal agents arrested him and several other men, he was unaware of the illegal activity.

The case is Calhoun v. United States, U.S. Supreme Court, 12-6142. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller and Mohammad Zargham)

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January 11, 2013 · 10:06 AM

On President Obama’s “Diversity Problem…”

Does Obama have a diversity problem?

Does Obama have a diversity problem?

Recently, much has been written  about President Obama’s “lack of gender diversity” within his cabinet.

I disagree with those who think that the president is not sincere in his effort to bring women to the forefront in major cabinet positions and judicial appointments.  Have we forgotten his two Supreme Court nominees Sonia Sotomayor and Solicitor General Elena Kagan who were successfully appointed in the president’s first term.

One would be hard-pressed to find a contradiction in the premise that President Obama has made a concerted effort to include women in all facets of his appointments.

The Huffington Post notes:

Though the optics of the gender equality issue are awkward for the president, CNN notes that Obama’s overall record of diversity isn’t as weak as it appears in the latest round of nominations.

Roughly 36% of Obama’s Cabinet are women compared to 19% for Bush in his first term, according to the Women and Politics Center at Rutgers.While Obama’s record on diversity is also better than the much-discussed 20% female representation in the Senate, he would have to appoint more women to match Bill Clinton’s record. Women represented 41% of his Cabinet in his second term.

The White House itself employs almost even amounts of men and women.

While Obama is now under pressure to find women — perhaps “binders full” of them– to fill the next wave of open positions, the administration is defending itself against mounting criticism.

“This president is committed to diversity,” said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Wednesday. “Look at the record. It is a vast improvement” from previous administrations.

Carney continued, saying that it “would be useful to wait and make judgments about this issue after the president has made the totality of appointments that he will make in the transition to a second term.”

Salon touts an article that claims the Obama White House is:

…Still White and Overwhelmingly Male.

The stale sameness of the president’s second-term Cabinet picks belies the administration’s rhetoric on diversity

President Obama has demonstrated his bona fides about his choices of cabinet members and White House staff.  I see the entire brouhaha as a concerted effort by right-wing operatives to divert their very real issues to diversify with regard to LGBT, women and minorities.

The president’s “diversity problem” is non-existent.  It is merely a well-played out diversionary tactic by the GOP to disseminate  half-truths, lies, innuendos and draw attention away from their own misogynistic tendencies.

The real “diversity problem” lies within the GOP, not the president’s White House.

Sheila Bryant (aka Kstreet607)

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January 25, 2011 · 8:52 PM

State Of The Union Address 2011: Supreme Court Justices Won’t All Attend

 

 NOTE:  This article was to have been posted hours ago.  I was having some connectivity issues with my computer.  I apologize for the delay.

Never, in my lifetime have I seen such disrespect for a sitting president…

Huffington Post

Chief Justice John Roberts will lead a contingent of six Supreme Court justices at President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech, quieting speculation that only Democratic appointees to the court would attend.

Roberts had objected to the partisan atmosphere at last year’s address, particularly after Obama offered rare criticism of the court during his speech.

Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg confirmed that six justices would be present at Tuesday’s speech, although she would not say which ones. But as three of the nine justices had previously all but ruled themselves out, it seemed a safe assumption that Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy would join their four colleagues who were appointed by Democratic presidents.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor also are expected to attend. For Kagan, it would be her first speech since Obama nominated her last year. Sotomayor was Obama’s first high court pick.

Justice Samuel Alito, who mouthed the words “not true” in response to Obama’s criticism, is spending this week as “jurist in residence” at the University of Hawaii law school. Justice Antonin Scalia, at the Capitol Monday to speak to the Tea Party Caucus, has not attended a State of the Union speech at least since the mid-1990s. Justice Clarence Thomas said last year that he doesn’t go because “it has become so partisan,” although he attended Obama’s first speech to Congress in February 2009.   More…

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July 12, 2010 · 2:21 PM

Obama has a higher rate of appointing women and minorities to the courts than any of his predecessors.

Think Progress

Yesterday, the Philadelphia Inquirer highlighted Republicans’ successful efforts to obstruct President Obama from appointing judges to the federal courts. Despite these efforts, the Inquirer notes, Obama has had a higher “rate of appointing women and people of color…than those of any of his precessors during their first year of their terms”:

So far, nearly half of Obama’s 73 appointments to the federal bench have been women, 25 percent have been African American, 11 percent Asian American, and 10 percent Hispanic. About 30 percent of Obama’s nominees were white males. By contrast, two-thirds of George W. Bush’s nominees were white males.

Obama’s rate of appointing women and people of color is higher than those of any of his predecessors during the first year of their terms.

Unfortunately, Republicans have shown a historically high level of obstruction in blocking Obama’s appointees. While Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan had 91 percent of their judicial appointees confirmed in their first year of office, Obama only had 36 percent of them approved by the U.S. Senate.

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