Opening Statement Of Senator
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),
Chairman, Committee On The Judiciary,
Confirmation Hearing On The Nomination Of Judge Sonia Sotomayor
To Be An Associate Justice Of The U.S. Supreme Court
July 13, 2009
As Prepared
Today, we consider the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be a
Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Our Constitution
assigns just 101 of us the responsibility to act on behalf of all 320
million Americans in considering this important appointment. The
President has done his part and made an historic nomination. Now
it is up to the Senate to do its part on behalf of the American people.
President Obama often quotes Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s insight that
“the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Each generation of Americans has sought that arc toward justice.
We have improved upon the foundation of our Constitution through the
Bill of Rights, the Civil War amendments, the 19th
Amendment’s expansion of the right to vote to women, the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the 26th
Amendment’s extension of the right to vote to young people. These
actions have marked progress toward our more perfect union.
This nomination can be another step along that path.
Judge Sotomayor’s journey to this hearing room is a truly American
story. She was raised by her mother, Celina, a nurse, in the South
Bronx. Like her mother, Sonia Sotomayor worked hard. She
graduated as the valedictorian of her class at Blessed Sacrament and at
Cardinal Spellman High School in New York. She was a member of
just the third class at Princeton University in which women were
included. She continued to work hard, including reading classics
that had been unavailable to her when she was younger and arranging
tutoring to improve her writing. She graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta
Kappa, and was awarded the M. Taylor Senior Pyne Prize for scholastic
excellence and service to the university, an honor awarded for
outstanding merit.
After excelling at Princeton she entered Yale Law School, where she was
an active member of the law school community. Upon graduation, she
had many options but chose to serve her community in the New York
District Attorney’s Office, where she prosecuted murders, robberies,
assaults and child pornography.
The first President Bush named her to the Federal bench in 1992, and she
served as a trial judge for six years. President Clinton named her
to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit where she
has served for more than 10 years. She was confirmed each time by a
bipartisan majority of the Senate.
Judge Sotomayor’s qualifications are outstanding. She has more
Federal court judicial experience than any nominee to the United States
Supreme Court in 100 years. She is the first nominee in well over a
century to be nominated to three different Federal judgeships by three
different Presidents. She is the first nominee in 50 years to be
nominated to the Supreme Court after serving as both a Federal trial
judge and a Federal appellate judge. She will be the only current
Supreme Court Justice to have served as a trial judge. She was a
prosecutor and a lawyer in private practice. She will bring a
wealth and diversity of experience to the Court. I hope all
Americans are encouraged by Judge Sotomayor’s achievements and by her
nomination to the Nation’s highest court. Hers is a success story
in which all Americans can take pride.
Those who break barriers often face the added burden
of overcoming prejudice. That has been true on the Supreme Court.
Thurgood Marshall graduated first in his law school class, was the lead
counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, sat on the United States Court
of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and served as the Nation’s top
lawyer, the Solicitor General of the United States. He won a
remarkable 29 out of 32 cases before the Supreme Court. Despite
his qualifications and achievements, at his confirmation hearing, he was
asked questions designed to embarrass him, questions such as “Are you
prejudiced against the white people of the South?”
The confirmation of Justice Louis Brandeis, the first
Jewish American to be nominated to the high court, was a struggle rife
with anti-Semitism and charges that he was a “radical”. The
commentary at the time included questions about “the Jewish mind” and
how “its operations are complicated by altruism.” Likewise, the
first Catholic nominee had to overcome the argument that “as a Catholic
he would be dominated by the pope.”
I trust that all Members of this Committee here today will reject the
efforts of partisans and outside pressure groups that have sought to
create a caricature of Judge Sotomayor while belittling her record, her
achievements and her intelligence. Let
no one demean this extraordinary woman, her success, or her
understanding of the constitutional duties she has faithfully performed
for the last 17 years. I hope all Senators will join together as
we did when we considered President Reagan’s nomination of Sandra Day
O’Connor as the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court and voted
unanimously to confirm her.
This hearing is an opportunity for Americans
to see and hear Judge Sotomayor for themselves and to consider her
qualifications. It is the most transparent confirmation hearing
ever held. Judge Sotomayor’s decisions and confirmation materials
have been posted online and made publicly available. The record is
significantly more complete than that available when we considered
President Bush’s nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito just a few
years ago. The Judge’s testimony will be carried live on several
television stations and live via webcast on the Judiciary Committee
website.
My review of her judicial record leads me to conclude that she is a
careful and restrained judge with a deep respect for judicial precedent
and for the powers of the other branches of the government, including
the law-making role of Congress. That conclusion is supported by a
number of independent studies that have been made of her record, and
shines through in a comprehensive review of her tough and fair record on
criminal cases. She has a deep understanding of the real lives of
Americans, the duty of law enforcement to help keep Americans safe, and
the responsibilities of all to respect the freedoms that define America.
Unfortunately, some have sought to twist her words and her record
and to engage in partisan political attacks. Ideological pressure
groups have attacked her before the President had even made his
selection. They then stepped up their attacks by threatening
Republican Senators who do not oppose her.
In truth, we
do not have to speculate about what kind of a Justice she will be
because we have seen the kind of judge she has been. She is a
judge in which all Americans can have confidence. She has been a
judge for all Americans and will be a Justice for all Americans.
Our
ranking Republican Senator on this Committee reflected on the
confirmation process recently, saying: “What I found was that
charges come flying in from right and left that are unsupported and
false. It’s very, very difficult for a nominee to push back.
So I think we have a high responsibility to base any criticisms that we
have on a fair and honest statement of the facts and that nominees
should not be subjected to distortions of their record.” I agree.
As we proceed, let no one distort Judge Sotomayor’s record. Let us
be fair to her and to the American people by not misrepresenting her
views.
We are a country bound together by our Constitution. It guarantees
the promise that ours will be a country based on the rule of law.
In her service as a Federal judge, Sonia Sotomayor has kept faith with
that promise. She understands that there is not one law for one
race or another. There is not one law for one color or another.
There is not one law for rich and a different one for poor. There
is only one law. She has said that” ultimately and completely” a judge
has to follow the law, no matter what their upbringing has been.
That is the kind of fair and impartial judging that the American people
expect. That is respect for the rule of law. That is the
kind of judge she has been. That is the kind of fair and impartial
Justice she will be and that the American people deserve.
Judge Sotomayor has been nominated to replace Justice Souter, whose
retirement last month has left the Court with only eight Justices.
Justice Souter served the Nation with distinction for nearly two decades
on the Supreme Court with a commitment to justice, an admiration for the
law, and an understanding of the impact of the Court’s decisions on the
daily lives of ordinary Americans. I believe that Judge Sotomayor
will be in this same mold and will serve as a Justice in the manner of
Sandra Day O’Connor, committed to the law and not to ideology.
In the weeks and months leading up to this hearing, I have heard the
President and Senators from both sides of the aisle make reference to
the engraving over the entrance of the Supreme Court. The words
engraved in that Vermont marble say: “Equal Justice Under Law.”
Judge Sotomayor’s nomination keeps faith with those words.
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