Ninety minutes into the questioning of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, a senator has asked her the inevitable question whether she would like to see cameras in the Supreme Court. The court on which she now sits, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, allows cameras to record its proceedings, but the Supreme Court has resisted the idea for decades. Sotomayor answered the question from Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) diplomatically, with seeming support for the idea but a nod toward the collegiality of the Court on which she may soon sit.
"I have had positive experiences with cameras," Sotomayor said. "I have participated. I have volunteered."
But then she said that whenever she enters a new work setting, she values collegiality highly and wants to "listen to the arguments of my colleagues" before urging changes in procedure or practice. "I try to share my experiences and my thoughts and be collegial." But when Kohl persisted, Sotomayor said that as a former litigator, she knows how to be convincing. Perhaps, she hinted, as a "new voice in the discussion," she can be persuasive.
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