Tag Archives: Court: U.S. Supreme

Americans United for Separation of Church and State: “Americans United made the argument in a friend-of-the-court brief filed yesterday in Salazar v. Buono, a legal battle centering on the display of a cross at the Mojave National Preserve in California. The case will come before the high court Oct. 7.”

“The Senate is starting a historic debate on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor . . . Republicans have lined up almost solidly against President Barack Obama’s nominee . . . ”

Citizen Link: “A Rasmussen poll shows only 41 percent support for her confirmation to the Supreme Court.”

Rasmussen Poll here

Boston Globe (AP): “Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska says he’ll support Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor when the Senate votes on her confirmation this week.”

AP: “The Arizona senator calls Sotomayor a judicial activist who tried to walk back from that record during her confirmation hearings.”

CNSNews: “Sen. John McCain says he is still on the fence when it comes to voting for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.”

SSRN: “This paper addresses a major question in the field of judicial politics, namely what determines whether justices join coalitions on the U.S. Supreme Court.”

In a 6-to-6 decision, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit Thursday narrowly decided not to review a three-judge panel’s determination that a Ten Commandments display at the Haskell County, Oklahoma, Courthouse is unconstitutional. Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund plan to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

NPR: “The U.S. Senate vote on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor may tell us more about the Republican party than it does about the nominee. Just six Republicans have so far announced their support for Sotomayor.”

The Hill: “Baucus had an A rating from the NRA in 2008, as did two other Senate Democrats who ran last year: Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Mark Warner of Virginia. Johnson supports Sotomayor’s nomination. Warner told The Hill on Thursday he intends to support Sotomayor — and that he was ‘very disappointed’ in the gun lobby . . . ”

Boston Globe (AP): “Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison says she will vote against confirming Sonia Sotomayor to be a Supreme Court justice.”

AP: “Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander said he was voting for President Barack Obama’s nominee despite his differences with her, particularly on gun rights.”

Austin American-Statesman: “U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican who is running for governor next year, said today she will oppose the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

“A confirmation vote for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will be one of the last things the Senate does next week before it adjourns for its August recess, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today.”

Boston Globe (AP): Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana says he will vote against confirming Sonia Sotomayor to be a Supreme Court justice.

AP: “Republican Sen. Richard Burr says he will vote against the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.”

“. . . the Federal Election Commission filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Citizens United v. FEC calling for the overruling of two Supreme Court decisions that have chilled public speech by imposing complex and burdensome layers of regulations.”

Warren Throckmorton & Dr. Paul Kengor write at the Grove City College Center for Vision & Values: “Ginsburg’s comments to The New York Times Magazine open a floodgate of disturbing questions regarding a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Perhaps even more amazing than her comments was the lack of clarification or follow up from the Times. ”

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy: “Put all of those things together–the exceptional ability and relative youth of the two most recent appointments, the already conservative character of the Court, the Republican Party’s commitment to making conservative appointments, and the Democrats’ relative lack of ability to use the Court to advance an agenda–and the idea that there might be a revival of something like the Warren Court in the next generation is, in a word, chimerical. That is pretty obvious. What is less obvious–and a little paradoxical–is that we are also dealing with something that can fairly be characterized as the end of judicial conservatism.”

University of St. Thomas Journal of Law & Public Policy: “This article begins by looking at the basic underlying principles of the Commerce Clause, which are essential to understanding how and why the Roberts Court might find FACE unconstitutional. Next it looks at the Act, both as it is written and as it has been interpreted by the lower federal courts. This section also covers the various constitutional challenges that have been mounted against FACE, with particular emphasis on the debate surrounding the question of whether the Act was validly enacted under Congress’s Commerce Clause power. Finally, this article considers whether the addition of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito to the Supreme Court will result in the invalidation of FACE.”

“‘These hearings have become little more than theater,’ Feingold said . . . Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., agrees. ‘We need to let judges let us know what they really think,’ he said.”

Christopher L. Eisgruber writes at Findlaw: “The Sotomayor hearings tell very little about what to expect the next time there is a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Indeed, despite the attention they get, the hearings matter much less than people suppose. They are the most visible part of the appointments process, but they are far from the most important part. As a result, the Sotomayor hearings’ implications for future nominations and confirmations are virtually nil.”

“As expected, all 12 Democrats on the judiciary panel voted for Judge Sotomayor. But among the seven Republicans on the committee, only Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina voted in favor.”

CNN: “Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, faces her next hurdle Tuesday morning as the Senate Judiciary Committee votes whether or not to confirm her.”

The Blog of the Legal Times: “The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider Sotomayor’s nomination Tuesday, and only one Republican member — Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) — out of the seven on the committee has said he plans to support her.”

Washington Post: “Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) announced today [last week] that he would support Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, making him the first Judiciary Committee Republican to do so and potentially paving the way for several more GOP senators to back her.”

McClatchyDC.com: “Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and John Cornyn of Texas, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced Friday that they’ll vote against Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Supreme Court . . . ”

Fox13Now.com (report includes video): “On Friday, Orrin Hatch said he would vote against Sotomayor.”

Via the American Future Fund, the text of a letter to the United States Senate sent by “156 conservative and constitutional cause leaders” regarding the nomination of Judge Sotomayor.

Bloomberg: “Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he will vote against confirming Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions writes in USA Today: “During three days of careful questioning, Judge Sotomayor renounced the pillars of activist thinking . . . Judge Sotomayor’s attempt to rebrand her previously stated judicial approach was, as one editorial page opined, ‘uncomfortably close to disingenuous.’”

National Review Online has the press release from Sen. Orrin Hatch’s office: “However, after thoroughly reviewing Judge Sotomayor’s record and being able to hear her testimony and responses during the hearing process, I reluctantly, and with a heavy heart, have found that I cannot support her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Associated Press: “In the end, Cornyn said he believes ‘the stakes are too high’ for him to support a nominee who might approach important constitutional issues like gun and property rights ‘from a liberal, activist perspective.’”

Jan Crawford Greenburg reports at “Legalities” (ABC News): “Calling her Judiciary Committee testimony ‘evasive, lacking in substance and, in several instances, incredibly misleading,’ Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl said he will vote against Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court.”

Fred Kaplan reports in the New York Times: “Today is the 50th anniversary of the court ruling that overturned America’s obscenity laws, setting off an explosion of free speech — and also, in retrospect, splashing cold water on the idea, much discussed during Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, that judges are ‘umpires’ rather than agents of social change.”

Brian Montopoli reports at Political Hotsheet (CBS News): “The Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday morning delayed its vote on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor until next Tuesday, July 28th”

Associated Press: “The abortion rights group NARAL ProChoice America says it’s endorsing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.”

Stuart Taylor, Jr., writing at The Ninth Justice (National Journal): “Indeed, I wonder whether the Obama team itself may even have suggested to the nominee that rejecting the Obama philosophy — as well as disavowing the apparent meaning of her years of ‘wise Latina woman’ speeches — would be the best way out of a tight spot, for reasons explained below.”

Tony Mauro writes at the National Law Journal: “At least three Sonia Sotomayors were portrayed before the Senate Judiciary Committee at its four-day confirmation hearing last week . . . Finally, and for Republicans the scariest of all, was the soon-to-be-unleashed Sonia Sotomayor who will reveal her long-hidden liberal stripes once she joins a Supreme Court that can do absolutely anything it wants.

Human Rights Campaign: “The Human Rights Campaign is encouraged by Judge Sotomayor’s responses to questioning from the Senate Judiciary Committee and her record of fair-minded decisions. Judge Sotomayor has consistently recognized the constitutional right to privacy, first articulated in Griswold, that lays the foundation for recognizing fundamental rights for LGBT people.”

Press Release from the Office of Senator Mitch McConnell: “‘Judge Sotomayor’s record of written statements suggest an alarming lack of respect for the notion of equal justice, and therefore, in my view, an insufficient willingness to abide by the judicial oath. This is particularly important when considering someone for the Supreme Court since, if she were confirmed, there would be no higher court to deter or prevent her from injecting into the law the various disconcerting principles that recur throughout her public statements. For that reason, I will oppose her nomination.’”

At How Appealing, Howard Bashman has a useful roundup of articles on the Sotomayor Senate hearings.

AP: “Frank Ricci, the white firefighter who recently won his reverse discrimination case at the Supreme Court, said Thursday that an unfavorable ruling by Sonia Sotomayor and other judges ‘divides people who don’t wish to be divided along racial lines.’”

Associated Press: “Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has completed three days of answering questions before the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

Tony Mauro writes at Law.com: “Under questioning from Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., on day four of her confirmation hearing, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor indicated she is likely to follow Justice Samuel Alito Jr.’s approach to deciding whether to join the Court’s ‘cert pool.’ . . . When Alito joined the Court in 2006, he at first joined the pool but then jumped out, after seeing how it operated and realizing that he’d prefer to have his own clerks give the petitions a look.”

Jonah Goldberg writes at Townhall: “Left unclear is whether Ginsburg endorses the eugenic motivation she ascribed to the passage of Roe v. Wade or whether she was merely objectively describing it. One senses that if Antonin Scalia had offered such a comment, a Times interviewer would have sought more clarity, particularly on the racial characteristics of these supposedly unwanted populations.”

Related:

Ginsburg: Roe about eliminating unwanted populations

Catholic League: Justice Ginsburg Needs to Explain Herself

AP: “The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman says he’ll set a vote in his panel next week on confirming Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.”

Via the Los Angeles Times “Top of the Ticket” blog: Senators’ opening statements Judge Sonya Sotomayor opening statement. Day Two: Part 1 | Part 2 Day Three: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Day Four: Part 1 …

“Finally, same-sex marriage.
The subject was raised indirectly by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) . . . when he asked Sonia Sotomayor about a court ruling that said Minnesota could deny a marriage license to two men.”

AP: “Republicans cleared the way Thursday for a Senate vote next month to confirm Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, placing her firmly in line to become the first Hispanic justice.”

“Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., described Sotomayor’s judicial record as ‘generally in the mainstream.’ He also said he thought she would keep an open mind on gun rights and proclaimed her ‘not an activist.’”

SSRN: “In this paper we ask: what causes the Court to issue an opinion which lacks precedential value? We propose and test three theories to explain plurality decisions – a social consensus account, a “hard” case theory, and an explanation based on the ‘collegial game.’”

Ed Whalen writes at the National Review Bench Memos Blog:  ”A follow-up to my post about Judge Sotomayor’s remarkably confusing answer yesterday: Below (in full) is the exchange this morning between Senator Coburn and Judge Sotomayor on use of foreign law. Is …

Ayone who believes these confirmation hearings represent much beyond empty political theater should consider . . . the only people speaking the truth are being systematically tackled and dragged screaming from the room.

The Atlantic‘s Bob Cohn interviews Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. They discuss the departure of Justice Souter, Breyer’s own confirmation hearings, the difficulty of being on the Supreme Court, the “flexible” interpretation of the Constitution, and the polarization of the Court.

Northwestern University Law Review: “There is a serious originalist inquiry to be made into the meaning of the Establishment Clause, but none of the ‘originalist’ judges on the Court appear to have the slightest interest in undertaking that inquiry.Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Thomas have each followed very different strategies in their efforts to unmoor the clause from its original purposes. Their efforts have, however, had two characteristics in common: they rest on dreadful historical scholarship, and they conveniently coincide with the agenda of the Republican party.”

Day Two of the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings.

Collin Levy writing in the Wall Street Journal: “Like several of the judges on the left branch of the court, Judge Sotomayor has said she favors a broader consideration of foreign and international law in U.S. judicial opinions. While she rarely had occasion to dip into foreign sources during her time on the Second Circuit, she recently went out of her way to embrace the concept and its applications by the high court.”

Associated Press: “Supreme Court aspirant Sonia Sotomayor says she considers the question of abortion rights “settled law” and says there is a constitutional right to privacy.”

Eugene Volokh writes at the Volokh Conspiracy: “That’s the headline on a CNSNews.com article. But if you look closely at what Judge Sotomayor actually did, the headline — and some other statements of the rest of the story — doesn’t really fit. ”

The Text of Sotomayor’s Opening Statement is here.

National Law Journal: “One of the recurring themes from Republican senators thus far this morning is that no matter how moderate or even-handed her record as a district and appeals judge has been, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will likely turn out to be an unabashed liberal once she joins the high court and is untethered by the precedents she must follow as an appeals court judge.”

The Hill: “During his opening statement in Monday’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) told nominee Sonia Sotomayor that she is virtually assured of Senate approval. ‘Unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re going to be confirmed,’ said Graham, capturing the sentiment of many Republicans at the outset of Sotomayor’s hearing.”

John Steward writing in the Des Moines Register: “In reality, alternating ‘boy, girl’ may work on the playground, but when it comes to judicial appointments (or elected offices, or editorial page editors) we need the best and brightest. Unfortunately, identity politics, where one vigorously supports a person based on ethnicity or gender, has clouded our collective thinking. Bill Clinton’s “I want a Cabinet that looks like America” was a feel-good attempt to appear inclusive. However, the results were abysmal (think Attorney General Janet Reno).”

AP: “An anti-abortion protester briefly disrupted the opening of Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination hearing.

Federalist Society: “In this installment of Originally Speaking, Thomas C. Goldstein, Wendy Long, Louis Michael Seidman, David Stras, and M. Edward Whelan III discuss how to approach Sotomayor’s nomination: what standard Senators should use to support or oppose the nomination, what deference should be given to the President, what weight should be given to the nominee’s views on issues, what questions the Committee should ask and which ones the nominee should answer.”

Catholic League: “Catholic League president Bill Donohue says U.S. Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg needs to explain her recent comment on abortion and eugenics . . . There is another reason why Ginsburg needs to clarify her remark. Before she was seated on the Supreme Court in 1993, she hired 57 law clerks over a period of 13 years. All were white . . . ”

“The National Law Journal’s ongoing coverage of the confirmation process of Sonia Sotomayor as U.S. Supreme Court Justice . . . compilation of news and commentary from around the Web on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.”

CNSNews: “The right to an abortion is not different than any other ‘fundamental right,’ according to a legal brief issued by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), in a case regarding Missouri state funding restrictions on abortion from 1988 when attorney Sonia Sotomayor was a member of the group’s governing board.”

Matthew J. Frank writes at Public Discourse: “If we want to lower the stakes of winner-take-all Supreme Court battles, we must search for justices who reject the notions of judicial activism and judicial supremacy. The second in a two-part series.

Matthew J. Franck writes at Public Discourse: “In the era of judicial supremacy, our whole constitutional system is disordered by the prevailing view that the nation’s governing charter is fundamentally the property of unelected, unaccountable judges with power to shape and reshape it as they see fit.”

The Hill: “Republicans will call two New Haven firefighters to testify in the confirmation hearings of Sonia Sotomayor next week, making clear the GOP’s intent to place affirmative action at the center of Senate battle over Sotomayor’s nomination.”

Washington Post: “A trove of federal records relating to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor went online this morning, offering details of her earlier nominations for two federal judgeships.”

This post may be updated.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: “. . . Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of . . . ”

Blog of the Legal Times: “More than 1,100 law professors have signed a letter supporting the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.”