Supreme Court nomination
Idaho Senators Crapo and Risch Will Vote No on Sotomayor
By Jill Kuraitis, 7-27-09
Idaho Republican Senators Mike Crapo and Jim Risch each issued statements Monday saying they’ll vote against the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. Each object to her stance on the Second Amendment and other topics.
Crapo: “Judge Sotomayor has distinguished herself throughout her career, serving as a strong role model for many as she has excelled in her chosen field. She has demonstrated one of the greatest things about America—the opportunity to become whatever you want with your God-given abilities. I enjoyed my meeting with her and found her to be a personable individual.
“However, after having studied her positions and taken careful consideration through the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings earlier this month, I have concluded that I cannot vote to confirm her to a lifetime appointment on the U.S. Supreme Court. Her testimony was evasive and lacked substance; in some circumstances, it was misleading and even contradictory to her own previous statements and writings.
“Most particularly, I found a number of her rulings and writings to be of great concern. First, she rejects that all Americans have an individual 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. In the Maloney case, she wrote that the right to bear arms is in fact not a “fundamental” right. If confirmed, she may very well be on the Court to hear that very case, Maloney. Even the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Idaho, has ruled the opposite way in a similar case--that the 2nd Amendment is binding on the states. Should Judge Sotomayor’s position in Maloney be upheld by the Supreme Court, Idahoans would lose their 2nd Amendment protection against state gun control laws.
“Also troubling is that she has made statements acknowledging that her experience allows her to choose the facts she wants to see when determining a case, rather than applying the law. And she has repeatedly stated that U.S. judges may look to foreign law to interpret the U.S. Constitution and the laws of the United States to maintain our country’s standing in the world community. The U.S. Supreme Court has directly reviewed ten of Judge Sotomayor’s decisions, and eight of those have been reversed or vacated. Most recently, the Court reversed a decision noted in an unsigned and unpublished opinion without any analysis regarding Ricci v. DeStefano, commonly called the New Haven firefighters case.
“I take this responsibility of confirming Supreme Court judges very seriously, and took every opportunity to learn more about Judge Sotomayor. This was not a decision that I reached lightly. The oath taken by federal judges says, in part, that they promise or swear to do justice for all. As I see it, that correctly describes the fundamental and proper role for a judge. Given the review I have made of Judge Sotomayor, I question whether she would or could abide by that standard and must vote against her nomination to sit on the highest court in our country.”
Risch: “First and foremost, I take the advise and consent duty imposed on me by the Constitution most seriously. I personally met with and interviewed Judge Sotomayor and discussed water law, the Second Amendment and several other matters. I reviewed her cases and I listened to her confirmation hearings and have determined I cannot support her lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.
“There is no question she is a genuinely nice, smart and well-intentioned person. However, her belief and pronouncement that the Second Amendment is not a fundamental right is something I cannot accept. Her answers to questions on the use of foreign law to interpret our Constitution did nothing to ease my concern that she would not look to the laws of other countries when interpreting the Constitution. That should not happen under any circumstance.
“After careful review, I simply cannot support the nomination of Judge Sotomayor.”
Reading:
Leagle has an index of legal reviews of Sotomayor’s opinions on ten major issues.
The New York Times has a short summary of some of Sotomayor’s positions.
Here’s a piece on her environmental positions and one on her business, property rights and internet decisions.
Striking difference in the 2 releases. Either one has spent too much time in DC or one has not spent enough time in DC.
Comment By Sharon Fisher, 7-27-09I'd be interested to hear how Crapo has voted on other Justice nominees, to see which ones he feels are more qualified than Sotomayor.
Comment By Mickey Garcia, 7-27-09Creeps! Troglodytes!
Comment By Brian, 7-27-09Sotomayor was asked directly about the 2nd Amendment "fundamental right" question by Sen. Leahy during the hearings, and Sotomayor was very clear: the term "fundamental", in Supreme Court parlance, does not mean the same thing as in common speech. It has to do with whether the right is incorporated against the states. She does not question whether there is an established individual right to bear arms.
Crapo and Risch (and many other Republican senators, I'm sure) decided what they wanted her to have said, and voted against that.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/07/sonia-sotomayor-hearing-transcript.html
Conservative to right-wing Republican US Senators voting against a liberal US Supreme Court nominee from a Democratic President is not news. It's dog bites man. Had Crapo or Risch announced they would vote in favor of the nominee, well, that would have been news.
Comment By Mickey Garcia, 7-28-09The pretense of these right wing jackasses in suits is laughable. They've been stacking the Supreme Court and the appellate courts with right wing ideologues and now that its the liberals turn to try and rectify the judicial imbalance they blather about "activist" judges and gun rights. I like the way Sessions talks. He reminds me that behind his suit, he's a beady eyed, hateful red neck who still resents not being able to own slaves. I can't wait till a black, liberal, lesbian is nominated for something. Watching these bigoted cracker asses perform will be entertaining.
Comment By Larry Lasich, 7-28-09Rosie and the Supremes.
Comment By JJ Johnston, 7-30-09Bravo! Well spoken; THANKYOU Senators.
Comment By Michael Blain, 7-30-091) The vote by these two Senators is just one more sign of the white-supremacist orientation of the majority of Idaho's politicians and the voting population they represent. They use phoney marketing categories like "conservative" or "Blue-dog democrat" to cover-up this reality.
2) The Gun issue is a red-herring. As social scientists who specialized in violent crime in the U.S. have established, gun sales spike after significant "racial" event (e.g., race riots; the election of President Obama).
The gun issue is just a favorite bone to be thrown into the woods to encourage the mob to get as low as they can go on Maslow's hierarchy and chase it. The real driver is, as you correctly point out, the carefully veiled, but still clear, reservoir of antiquated white-supremacist cultism that continues to permeate the dominant culture (culture may not be the right word for a malignant cult) in Idaho. As a hereditarily incurable "mud person" myself, I haven't seen any real change in their symptoms in way over fifty years and I fear it may be hopeless.
Comment By Dave Skinner, 8-02-09Wow, is some idiotic "white supremacist" cant all the better you folks can come up with? Wow, the irony.
Don't you understand that making other amendments in the Bill of Rights, such as the First frinstance, and all the other guff about "states rights" in the KKK was all about whether fundamental rights belonged to the individual American citizen?
Incorporated rights mean while the FEDERAL government can not infringe a basic right, a STATE can. Fundamental means neither the state, nor feds, nor local can infringe or abrogate a civil liberty. Think it through REAL HARD before you start riffing on "white supremacy." Go put on your dunce caps and look in the mirror if maybe you need to visualize what's wrong with your picture.
Sotomayor apparently has thought it through... Nonetheless, she got it fundamentally wrong, so I don't think she should be incorporated into the body of the Supreme Court.
Wow, I'm good! I only took twenty seconds or so to bait the hook and I trolled something all the way up from the muck at the very bottom. It's a big one too and it's mad and ugly and smearing slime all over the deck! Yahoo! Whoopee! Is there a bag limit on these things?
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