Sotomayor Hearings, Day Two: "Ok, Say It To Me"

During the second day of her SCOTUS confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Cmte, Judge Sonia Sotomayor was grilled by GOP sens. for her statement about her Latina heritage.

While decisions in racial-preference and gun-rights cases were widely cited, the most dramatic moments came when Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) pressed her about her '01 speech in which she said she hoped that "a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Sessions contrasted her opening statement, in which she pledged "fidelity to the law," with her past speeches. "Had you been saying that with clarity over the last decade or 15 years," he said, "we'd have a lot fewer problems today."

Sotomayor said her remark had been misconstrued, and she pointed to her judicial record as proof.

"My record shows that at no point or time have I ever permitted my personal views or sympathies to influence an outcome in a case," she said.

But the major fireworks came roughly six hours later, when Graham, who was notable for being the only GOPer to indicate he could vote for Sotomayor in his opening statement yesterday, touched on a litany of issues in a line of questioning that was by turns folksy and combative.

"You have these speeches that just blow me away," Graham said early on during his 30 min. period. "Don't become a speechwriter if this law thing doesn't work out."

Graham spoke in a frustrated tone. "The one thing I've tried to impress upon you -- through jokes and being serious," he said, "is the consequences of these words and the world in which we live."

At one point, Graham fished around his surface space on the dais to quote the "wise Latina" passage directly but said he could not find it. He then asked Sotomayor, "Do you remember it?"

She smiled and said, softly, "Yes."

"Ok, say it to me," he replied.

Sotomayor sat silently for more than five seconds, before Graham located the paper with the quote and read it to her.

On PRLDEF And Temperment

Graham was the only one of the five GOPers who spoke today to ask Sotomayor about her work for the board of directors of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), questioning her about what he said were briefs filed by the group that called denying Medicaid funds to poor women for abortions akin to slavery.

For her part, Sotomayor claimed that she "never reviewed those briefs." The PRLDEF staff was responsible for its advocacy programs, she said, and her work was more closely focused on fundraising.

Graham also referenced a report in the Almanac of the Fed. Judiciary in which lawyers, under the cloak of anonymity, described Sotomayor as "a terror on the bench" and "a bit of a bully." The New Republic's Jeffrey Rosen first raised these concerns in a piece published just after Justice David Souter's resignation and weeks before she was selected for the Court.

"I do ask tough questions in oral argument," Sotomayor said. "When I ask lawyers tough questions, it's to give them an opportunity to explain their positions on both sides, and to persuade me that they're right."

Other Sidebars

Though questions about her speeches produced the most drama, sens. also focused on her decisions in two critical cases: Ricci v. DeStefano, in which she upheld the city of New Haven, CT's, decision to throw out firefighter promotion test results because no African-Americans had passed (and which the SCOTUS reversed on 6/29); and Maloney v. Cuomo, in which she ruled that NY could restrict martial-arts weapons because the SCOTUS' landmark '08 decision in DC v. Heller did not apply to state governments.

Judiciary Cmte Chair Pat Leahy (D-VT) seemed to pre-empt the GOPers by asking Sotomayor about these cases before they could, giving her a chance to explain, in her own words, why she and the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled as it did.

Sotomayor said the issue in Ricci "was what the city did or could do when it was presented with a challenge to one of its tests ... that everybody agreed had a very wide difference between the pass rate between a variety of different groups." She said that the SCOTUS "applied a new standard" when it overruled her opinion.

Leahy asked her if she would rule differently following the SCOTUS' reversal.

"Clearly," she said. "That is now the statement of the Supreme Court of how employers and the court should examine this issue."

On gun rights, Leahy asked if she thought the 2nd Amendment guaranteed an original right to bear arms.

"Yes, sir," she answered. "Like you I understand how important the right to bear arms is to many Americans. ... I understand the individual right fully, as the Supreme Court addressed in Heller."

But GOP sens. still skewered her for those rulings. Senate Min. Whip Jon Kyl pressed her to commit to recusing from any case that came before the SCOTUS on the 2nd Amendment in light of her ruling in Maloney; Sotomayor refused to be pinned down.

Going Off-Script

During questioning by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), an anti-abortion protester loudly disrupted the hearing, one of several such incidents. After he was removed, Grassley deadpanned, "People always say I have the ability to turn people on."

Gaffe Of The Day

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) questioned Sotomayor about her ruling that helped end the '94-'95 baseball strike. After Sotomayor described growing up "in the shadow" of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and watching baseball with her father before he died, Leahy, a Red Sox fan, noted, "Be careful -- you want to keep the chairman on your side."

Sotomayor said that "many residents of Washington, DC, have asked me to look at the Senators," a name shared by two different teams that long ago left DC for MN and TX, respectively. Washington's team is now called the Nationals, of course.

Order To Appear

Eleven of the 19 sens. on the cmte questioned Sotomayor today. The cmte will reconvene at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) will get the first shot at the nominee. Following questioning by the cmte's most junior member -- Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) -- the cmte will then proceed into closed session to discuss private matters relating to Sotomayor's FBI background check, among other issues.

Then sens. will each receive 20 min. for a second round of questioning, though Leahy hoped that most sens. would not use the entirety of their allotted time for that round. Sessions, however, seemed unyielding, suggesting GOPers were likely to use most, if not all, of their time.

(STEVEN SHEPARD)