Sotomayor: GOP dilemma
28 May 2009 |permalink | email article
While the party’s radical right has opened fire on Judge Sotomayor, President Obama’s bold political stroke in the historic nomination of her as the first Latina women to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court has racial and gender consequences for how the party opposite handles the confirmation hearings.
Despite predictable outcries from Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich that the twice confirmed federal judge is a Latina woman racist the nomination puts Republicans in an electoral bind heading into the 2010 and 2012 electoral cycles.
Controversial GOP chairman Michael Steele has said “that you have to be careful. You don’t want to be perceived as a bully.” Wing nuts will ignore the advice but it won’t matter. Sotomayor is a slam dunk for confirmation.
Despite this reality, as the Washington Post reports today, the unfazed nominee has already shown an ability to withstand tough questioning.
The key test occurred during her confirmation hearing in the Senate nearly a full year after her Judiciary Committee hearing in 1997 to the U.S. Court of Appeals when she survived a tough grilling from Republicans about mandatory prison sentences, gay rights and the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
How the current Republicans on the Judiciary Committee will respond is unclear but the Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, now the ranking Republican, is the only member still on that panel.
California Letter
As shadow campaigns for gubernatorial nominations next June gain traction in both parties the state Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the ban on gay marriage emerges as a pivotal issue. On the Democratic side the jousting between Attorney General Jerry Brown who argued against the voter-approved Proposition 8 ban and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom who authorized same sex weddings in 2004 is the one to trail.
Quote
“So take heart in the change we have already brought. But I want you to know Los Angeles, ya ain’t seen nothing yet.” Obama at a major DNC fundraiser Wednesday night with controversial new Democratic ally Arnold Specter in tow.
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