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Sotomayor

At long last, the hearings are finally upon us.  I have to confess that I’m following them mostly by reading headlines, but the attention-grabbing news from yesterday was Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham’s statement to the would-be Associate Supreme Court Justice, delivered in his typically folksy manner:

“Unless you have a complete meltdown, you are going to be confirmed”

He then proceeded to rip her a new one. The media has largely been going along with this spectacle… treating the hearings with high drama, yet acknowledging in a wink-wink sort of fashion that her nomination is a fait accompli, sort of as if everybody is playing their expected roles — i.e., the Republicans are being unnecessarily antagonistic, confrontational, and offensive in their lines of argument and questioning, but they are just catering to their base and she’s going to be confirmed, so what does it matter?

However, unless I’m missing out on something, I believe that for Sotomayor’s nomination to advance for a full Senate vote, she needs to be approved out of the Judiciary Committee by at least one Republican.  And with a line-up including a former prosecutor who failed to win confirmation to a federal judgeship on account of charges of alleged racism (Ranking Member Jeff Sessions), one far-right crazy guy (Coburn), three reflexive Republicans that are part of the GOP leadership (Senators Kyl and Cornyn), it’s hard to see where that one Republican vote comes from.  We’re left with Senator Grassley, who based on his opening statement is in the same corner as Kyl and Cornyn, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, and Graham. My best guess is that the best chance for a yes-vote comes from Hatch, but none of these Republicans were very gracious towards the nominee yesterday.  What do you all think?

Posted on 14 July '09 by Sebastian, under Uncategorized.

3 Comments to “Sotomayor”

#1 Posted by vshawnt (14.07.09 at 15:56 )

I think that Graham will vote for her. In his opening remarks he said that he had noted the fact that many Democrats had voted for Roberts even though they didn’t agree with his philosophy and wouldn’t have nominated him if they had the choice. Hatch is a good guess too.

I wasn’t aware that at least one Senator from the minority had to vote for her in order to get a floor vote. Sounds like something that would be in the Senate rules though.

CSPAN has a live video feed of the hearings. I’ve been keeping it on in the background at work. It’s unfolding pretty much as expected I’d say.
http://www.c-span.org/Supreme-Court-Sotomayor-Senate-Confirmation-Hearings.aspx

I’m not sure why Sessions is fighting so aggressively since 1) he has to know that he’s already lost, and 2) the only people who will appreciate his shrill attacks are the very people who are going to vote for him no matter what.

One thing that is infinitely clear to me as I listen to Sessions is that he really doesn’t understand that Sotomayor is smarter than him. He is behaving as if he can pin her down on something but she’s already out-maneuvered him before he even finishes the question. If he understood that she was smarter than him, I think that his questioning might be less likely to so starkly reinforce the disparity.

#2 Posted by Sebastian (15.07.09 at 13:23 )

Here’s some backup on the one-republican vote rule…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-loewe/the-politics-of-sotomayor_b_207617.html

Sessions is embarassing, but I don’t think he realizes it, and those around him are probably too afraid to tell him (or think he’s doing a great job). my favorite moment of the hearings so far was when sessions tried to use the words of a judge against sotomayor, and she said that the judge, my friend, is in the audience!

#3 Posted by airmax (28.04.10 at 08:38 )

Very honored to see your blog?