by Jonathan Singer, Thu Aug 06, 2009 at 11:18:16 AM EDT
The Senate has confirmed Sonia Sotomayor to serve as the next Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court. The vote was 68-31. More as we hear it...
Update [2009-8-6 15:23:45 by Jonathan Singer]: Sotomayor earned the support of 59 of the 60 members of the Democratic caucus (with the ailing Ted Kennedy not voting), as well as nine of 40 Republican Senators.
Tags: Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court (all tags)
vote EVER against a SCOTUS appt.
These A-holes voted for Thomas, THE MOST Activist judge on the court...
F-You McCain, there was a point where I had a modicum of respect for you, you sack of crap.
At least ONE of you could have told the truth, that you were voting against her because your base is pineing away for the disappearing days of White Supremacy and is throwing a trantrum about it.
Seriously, I hope every Hispanic in this country punishes these clowns for at least a decade.
The Southern White Peoples Party just took another step towards the wilderness...
I guess McCain is not into being reelected anymore. Well awesome.
As to Sotomayor, well I think she can be a bit of a corporate tool but hopefully she can go a bit more left. Any judge worth their salt conceals their ideological leanings as much as possible if there's a solid shot at the SCOTUS.
I find myself looking back with nostalgia over the hand-wringing posts on this site leading up to Obama's nomination following Justice Souter's announcement.
I'd like to thank many of you here for the feeling of vindication and pride that I am now luxuriating in. It would not have been possible without your agonizing efforts. The finest wine comes from grapes grown on vines under severe stress, and so I raise a glass of just such wine to our new Justice and to you, who made her confirmation that much sweeter.
Salud!
Hooray for our newest Justice. May she have a long and productive career on the High Court.
Not that I am rushing anyone off the courts, but if Ginsburg or Stevens go, then Obama is completely justified in putting an idealogical hard core liberal there, that is what he would be replacing.
A bunch of Repubs ranted Sotomayor was TOO liberal, but my buds at Oyez Project and SCOTUS blog were of the opinion she is very centerist.
My take is, they have already screamed "LIBERAL" and OUT OF THE MAINSTREAM so send up Diane Woods or even better, Kathleen Sullivan, and when they go hyperbolic, just say...
Oh, you guys always go nuts, it's just another woman and that's what you object to...
Can you imagine the RR if Obama nominates an openly gay woman!
I would burn vacation and buy a ticket to the hearings just to watch Jeff "My Ancestors are from the Plantation" Sessions spit blood over that!
I have great respect for Justice Stevens, but if he is an "ideological hard core liberal," then our standards have definitely fallen.
But, agreed. There certainly is no Thurgood Marshall or Louis Brandeis on this court.
They have though. It's a huge change. It's really brought home during Constitutional Law course in the US. Criminal Procedure too, as you see Police allowed to become the facist mini-tyrants they are today and citizens can get arrested for not looking at police (so suspicious!) or looking at police (looking is suspicious!) in otherwise identicle circumstances.
Looks like Graham was smart enough to save his own bacon.
She's not likely to be my favorite justice on commerce issues, but neither was Souter for that matter.
Save his bacon from WHAT?
A Democrat is not going to win in South Carolina. If anything, Lindsey Graham (a perennial punching bag for the hard right) made himself even more vulnerable to a primary challenge by voting for Sotomayor.
The only explanation for Graham's behavior on this nomination is that he wants to position himself for national office. Yes, yes, I know it will never happen because of that thing we don't talk about. Fine, give me a better explanation.
For all his faults, Graham is NOT A Pyscho.
I think this was a vote from a man with legal background, who has a bit of respect left for himself.
He knows she is not a blood curtling leftist NOR a race monger.
Every so often, a Republican CAN do something we don't expect: The right thing.
It's few and far between in his party these days, but in this case, that is how I see it.
Graham's questioning of Sotomayor was hardly respectful, and this from the guy who made a point of apologizing to Mrs. Alito for what the mean mean Democrats said to her husband. It's just that after beating Sotomayor up verbally, he went ahead and voted for her.
The guy is a snake, and more to the point, he definitely made himself more vulnerable to a primary challenge by casting this vote. If you want to tell me he did it simply because it was the right thing, I think you need to make a stronger case.
He gave Alito a complete tongue bath, it was borderline nauseating.
I think he ALREADY KNEW he was going to vote for Sotomayor, and the questioning was the cover.
Who knows, can't read his mind.
But, I am looking for the motivation otherwise.
You're dead-on, this makes him MORE vunerable to a challenger, and this maybe a sign, he is not going to run for another term?
The other Repubs that are in tough districts for this vote, that is the common element there.
Call this a legacy vote for Lindsey, the right side of history?
I agree with you, he has ZERO chance at national office, because of the "light in the loafers" rumors, which is the ONLY sin capable of knocking you out of the Republican party these days.
Hell, you could have a YouTube Video with you eating puppies while having sex in a Hitler mask, just make sure it's STRAIGHT sex....and all is forgiven in the Party of Vitter and Ensign.
I had thought the Latino population was higher than 5% but according to the Census, it is slightly less than that in SC. I just checked.
There are times he comes to his senses. This was one of them. Better than McCain, who deserves to be tossed out for this one.
I don't care what Graham's motivation is, to be honest. He did the right thing, and that is what matters, doesn't it.
His motivation was purely political... when questioned about his vote by right wing activists, he said, "Enjoy your being in the minority, folks!" He knows that you can't alienate hispanics and still win...
While this may be true for the Republican Party, it's certainly not true for each individual Republican. For example, Jeff Sessions probably hurt his party's chances of regaining a majority, but I doubt he hurt his own reelection chances any. That's one of the GOP's main problems: the people with a national focus like Karl Rove understand that Hispanics need to be brought inside the tent, but there are too many individual Tom Tancredo types who simply don't care.
Now, I very much doubt Lindsey Graham personally needs the Latino vote for his reelection, and he probably hurt his chances in a future Republican primary with his vote. So unless you buy my theory that he is aiming for higher office, you have to contend that he is (unlike pretty much all of his Senate colleagues) so staunchly committed to helping the Republican Party on a national level that he took one for the team.
"Sealed the Deal" occurred to me twice today.
It's happening so often at this point, I hardly bother to rub it in at all anymore.
I have a minor problem with the idea that this was a strictly partisan vote. I understand that there was a majority of Republicans voting against Sotomayor, but keep in mind that 9/40 is almost 25% voting in favor of her.
My point is that this whole debacle has been to keep a narrative going that we have Republicans vs Democrats on Capitol Hill. Really we're dealing with an irrelevant Republican Party stirring up as much noise as possible to try and seem relevant.
In the end the real opposition on the most contentious issues like Health Care Reform, ACES, and EFCA is Liberal/Progressive Democrats vs (Blue Dog Democrats + Republicans).
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