Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) did not wait for Republicans to raise the controversial issues that have swirled around Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. In the first round of questioning this morning, Leahy has asked her about the New Haven firefighters case Ricci v. DeStefano, her "wise Latina" remark, and the D.C. v. Heller Second Amendment case.
On both Ricci and Heller, Sotomayor insisted that her decisions were dictated by clear precedent. In the New Haven case, she said both a 2nd Circuit ruling and the 1991 amendments to the Civil Rights Act on "disparate impact" civil rights violations compelled the decision that New Haven was justified in refusing to certify a promotion test because African-Americans had not qualified under it. "We re obligated to follow established precedent," she said.
On the Second Amendment, she said her panel's ruling in Maloney v. Cuomo applied the Heller decision which explicitly left open the question whether the right to bear arms applies against the states.
As for the "wise Latina" remark -- that a wise Latina judge would make a better decision than a white male -- Sotomayor said she was trying to be inspirational to her audience and encourage them "to become anything they wanted to become, as I did." But she went on to state "up front," that no one ethnic group or gender has "an advantage in sound judgment." Everyone, she added, "has the equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge."
More generally, she told Leahy, "As a judge, I don't make law." The process of judging, she said, "is a process of keeping an open mind."
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