A Liberal Judge

I Don’t Know What Liberal Means
06/05/09 - National Review by Ed Whelan
Via PowerLine

Mr. Whelan fills in a weak area in Judge Sontomayor's knowledge, and offers a directory to her statements and opinions. [Quotes are edited.]

Judge Sotomayor gave a speech in January 2001, and provided this account. She explained her problems being confirmed to the Second Circuit court:

Senate Republican leaders believed that I was a potential for the Supreme Court one day. They also believed that I am a liberal, and therefore did not want the nomination to go through. I don’t know what liberal means.

Sotomayor was an assistant district attorney in 1983. Evidently she knew what “liberal” meant when quoted in a New York Times article.

I had more problems during my first year in the office with the low-grade crimes such as shoplifting, prostitution, and minor assault cases. In large measure, in those cases you were dealing with socio-economic crimes, crimes that could be the product of the environment and of poverty.

Once I started doing felonies, it became less hard. No matter how liberal I am, I’m still outraged by crimes of violence. Regardless of whether I can sympathize with the causes that lead these individuals to do these crimes, the effects are outrageous.

Sotomayor's phrase "No matter how liberal I am" is the same as saying "Even though I am very liberal".

Among other things, Sotomayor understood back then that a liberal "sympathizes with the causes that lead these individuals to do these crimes" and is inclined to explain crimes as "the product of the environment and of poverty."

But I think that I can offer Sotomayor even more help on what liberal means, at least in the context of judging.

A liberal judge thinks that it is proper to indulge her own identity in deciding cases.

A liberal judge celebrates "the importance of indefiniteness in the law" and the "unpredictability" that results when a judge "develops a novel approach" that "pushes the law in a new direction."

A liberal judge resorts to shenanigans to bury the claims of white firefighters that they have been discriminated against on the basis of their race.

A liberal judge favors campaign-finance restrictions over the First Amendment.

A liberal judge embraces novel equal-protection theories that would compromise public safety.

A liberal judge publicly cheerleads liberal politicians.

A liberal judge excuses her own acts of discrimination.

A liberal judge thinks that Supreme Court justices are entitled to make policy.

A liberal judge hides her support for racial quotas behind gauzy euphemisms.

A liberal judge commends lawsuits that promote abortion and illegal immigration and that undermine welfare reform.

Obama and Sotomayor Are Anti-Gun

Sotomayor is Obama’s End Run on the Second Amendment
05/29/09 - Pajamas Media by Bob Owens

The Constitution protects your right to own guns. Sorry, Obama and Sotomayor interpret it as not applying to the individual States. This is the beauty of having a law professor as President.

[edited] The recent landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller put an end to decades of argument about the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court rejected 5-4 the collectivist interpretation favored by gun control advocates such as President Obama.

The Court found that the Second Amendment protects the right of citizens to own firearms for private use; that this is an individual right predating the Constitution; and that its authority is tied directly to the natural right of self-defense.

Six months after Heller, Sotomayor issued an opinion in Maloney v. Cuomo that the protections of the Second Amendment do not apply to the states. She found that your city or state can ban all guns and disarm you.

Such an opinion seems to fly directly in the face of Heller. This exposes Sotomayor as an anti-gun radical who believes that you have no right to own a firearm, even for the most basic right of defending your family in your own home.

The Supreme Court will hear an appeal of Maloney on June 26. Sotomayor would almost certainly have to recuse herself from Maloney if confirmed. But her views, so attractive to an anti-gun President, would be applied to similar cases appealed to the Court.

Obama was a director of the Joyce Foundation when it attempted to corrupt Second Amendment legal scholarship and undermine the decision-making processes of the Supreme Court. Only a concerted effort by America’s gun owners may keep Obama from appointing an anti-gun, activist judge to the Court.