If you haven't been watching Sotomayor's confirmation hearings, wow are you missing out on some gems. Versha Sharma at TPM covers some of my favorite moments from oh-so-classy Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
In the most aggressive questioning of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing thus far, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) read out a laundry list of complaints about the nominee this afternoon. Graham went through insult after insult from anonymous reviews about Sotomayor's temperament, including ones that called her "nasty," "a terror," "a bit of a bull," and one that said she lacks any "judicial temperament." Graham then asked her directly: "Do you think you have a temperament problem?"
As both Samhita and Ann have written, there's a specific sexist and racist narrative that accompanies the accusations of Sotomayor as somehow angry or meaner than her male counterparts. (Because when white dudes are strong, they're just powerful. When women of color are strong, they're scary.) And it's simply infuriating to watch it play out in these hearings.
Sharma also points out that Sen. Graham - who has already made his fear of Sotomayor's "fiery temper" quite clear - became a bit of a bully himself (I'd also add 'condescending asshole' to that) in his "bullying" accusations, telling Sotomayor that "maybe these hearings are a time for self-reflection" for her and asking her about her "wise Latina" quote. Because that hasn't been talked about enough, obviously.
When the judge answered in the affirmative, he asked her to recite it - twice. Sotomayor hedged a response, and Graham plowed ahead, said, "I've got it here," and read the quote out himself.The infantilizing questioning from Graham continued throughout his entire thread; he interrupted her answers multiple times, and made a theme out of asking her to explain her understanding of certain legal concepts and current events...
I think it's clear who has the real "temperament" problem here.
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I agree, absolutely infuriating. I'm amazed at how idiotic and ignorant that guy is. Why can't those racist idiots shut up about the "wise Latina" quote and get over it? Nobody batted an eyelash when Alito (I think it was him?) expressed his Italian pride, but it's not OK for a woman to express pride for her heritage.
I wondered, did Sandra Day O'Connor have problems like this back when she got nominated?
Alito's expression of pride didn't involve suggesting that someone of his race/gender would make better decisions than someone of another.
If you read the entire statement--rather than just the piece taken out of context by the Republicans--what she actually says is that everyone has a bias by dint of their upbringing, experience, race and gender. She goes on to say that its incumbent for a judge to recognize their biases, and then ensure they don't sway their opinion. I'd say that's pretty much the gold standard in what we expect of judges.
I know we disagree basically all the time cattrack, but THANK YOU for pointing this out. I'm so tired of people taking her quote out of context and twisting her words to mean something completely different.
YW, Llevinso. Actually I generally agree w/ most of what I read here...
Can you show me the context in which her repeated statement isn't holding her demographic "bias" up as better than others'? People defending this statement or praising the context never actually quote them. I support Sotomayor's nomination, so I'd love to have this issue disarmed, but not by ambiguous paraphrasing of what we'd like her to really have meant. She herself has disavowed the statement.
She hasn't "disavowed" the statement, mind you, or at least not the point of it. She has stated that her words did not strike the note she had hoped they would. In my words, that means that the willingness of sensationalists and bigots to twist her words into some sort of "reverse racism" has undermined her original point.
Now, to that original point, the context states, and rather clearly, that having a diverse set of viewpoints on the bench is valuable. The reasoning there is that even "wise" white men such as Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted to uphold race and gender discrimination, despite being demonstrable "wise" in her eyes.
In other words, representation on the bench from people of diverse backgrounds, with the experiential knowledge those individuals carry, is critical to the execution of justice.
This is in direct contract to Justice O'Connor's argument that a "wise man" and a "wise woman" will reach the same conclusion. Part of Sotomayor's "evidence," if you will, is that, despite their having been many wise justices in the history of the US, before 1972, not a single justice upheld a gender discrimination case. If you were to take O'Connor's stance, you'd have to agree that 7/9 justices on the USSC for the Dred Scott decision were patently "unwise" and if they had but been "wise," the justices would have found for Scott. I don't know those justices other decisions, but I would think they didn't make it to the USSC by being "unwise." Rather, the obliviousness brought on by their privileged experience blinded them to the simple truth that Scott was a human being and that no human being ought to be treated as property.
But, hey, rather than having me paraphrase and put in my own two cents, why don't you read the lecture from which that quote is drawn? It's easy enough to find.
But she didn't say that she would bring a different perspective than a white man, she suggested her ethnicity and gender would lead her to a "better" decision.
Regarding the hideous Dred Scott decision, they weren't even deciding the case, however unwisely, on the merits of Scott's humanity vs. his owner's right to property. It was a hardly at all disguised political decision meant to settle sectional division and avert disunion by settling the slavery issue once and for all, as a matter of constitutional law beyond the scope of presidents and congressmen.
Aleks,
Have you read the speech yet? Because, well, I respect your intelligence, no doubt. Further, I don't think anyone here is suggesting that you're "stupid" or "illiterate" and if anyone is, it's not really furthering the discourse.
However, I don't see how, if you've read her actual speech, you could walk away with the impression that she thinks she's better than anyone else.
She specifies the areas in which one's understanding of an issue can be colored by one's experience. She also specifies that "I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group... However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give."
She states, in both the passage I previously quoted and in the entire end of the speech, that a judge who has first-hand experience facing institutional racism will have a more nuanced understanding of the way the law affects people than someone who has benefiting from that institutional rot. In the statement above, she states that it's not impossible for a white person or a man to have a nuanced understanding of such issues, but it takes an effort that many (particularly privleged) people are not willing to make.
She's not saying that POCs are smarter than white people or that women are smarter than men, but that people who are disenfranchised tend to have a more nuanced understanding of how the law works, particularly when applied to people like them, than those who are privileged.
Now, these are most definitely controversial statements and I can totally understand Sotomayor's unwillingness to carry that point of view forward, particularly when being grilled by a bunch of wealthy, well-heeled white guys.
Re: Dred Scott - of the "We hold these truths to be self evident" line in the Declaration of Independence, the USSC found that "the men who framed this declaration were great men -- high in literary acquirements, high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others, and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery."
Basically, the USSC found that African descended people were not, in fact, people, in no uncertain terms.
So, while the case may have been able to be decided without determining the humanity of African-descended people, the Court saw fit to define such people as less than human. A decision that could not have been come to if similarly educated people of diverse backgrounds had been on it. They found that the Missouri Compromise overstepped the bounds of law because it treated African Americans as human beings. Please try to read that decision any other way. I know it's long, but it's also pretty clear in its overstated white supremacism.
I don't think "she thinks she's better than anyone" (except probably Lindsey Graham and Jeff Sessions). I think that she has one pet line which is chauvinistic, and needs to be addressed honestly. I DON'T CARE that she said it, but it's ridiculous and dishonest to claim that she simply "expressed pride in the fact that she is a Puerto Rican Latina, and noted that her identity shapes her worldview*", and pretend that that's what her detractors ("some white men") are criticizing her for.
*http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-search.fcgi?IncludeBlogs=2&search=gingrinch&limit=20
I would never suggest that the Dred Scott decision wasn't a hallmark of white supremacy. In fact they went far beyond the subtler (though no less brutal in application) and somewhat conscience-stricken racism of slavery's early defenders, who as far as I know never indicated that freed blacks couldn't be citizens, and who regarded slavery as a "necessary evil" that time would take care of so they didn't have to. It was latter day defenders of slavery such as John C Calhoun who were proud of the institution and regarded it as a "positive good." Taney plus six were obviously more in line with the proto-Confederate view of slavery than with that of the southern Founding Fathers, who were deeply uncomfortable (a colossally inadequate response but better than their heirs') with slavery.
As for the determination to condemn Africans explicitly and forever, as I said Taney was (inappropriately) charged with settling the issue permanently, and (inappropriately) accepted the task. That is the reason for the extreme and sweeping nature of the decision, far beyond the scope of the actual case. I'm not in any way defending Taney's gang or the decision by pointing that out. The worst ruling in US history isn't mitigated by the fact that it was made in the context of a SC power grab.
Okay, so first off... I don't think her comment is "chauvinistic" at all. It is stating that, in a racist and sexist system, people who are disenfranchised by that system are going to have, by virtue of their experience, a more nuanced understanding of the system - on the whole.
That's not chauvinistic. It's not saying that, by nature, Latinas are more insightful than white men, but that, in a system hedged against women and people of color, women and people of color are going to, on the whole, have a more complete understanding of the functioning and effects of the law than those people who are privileged by that systemic bias. It's common sense and the only people to whom it's not common sense are those who gain privilege by denying its truth. That could be either people like me (white men) or people whose careers are made by denying this simple truth (folks like, say, Michael Steele).
Finally, re: Dred Scott, so you agree with me that at least 6/9 USSC justices (Nelson agreed with the ruling, but not the reasoning, so it's hard to tell what his perspective was) denied the basic humanity of African-descended people?
This would not have been possible had the men on the bench been Black. Similarly, more subtle ways this has played out include the point Sotomayor brought up in her speech about no women winning discrimination cases before the USSC until 1972. If women had been serving on the bench, it's highly, highly doubtful that would have been the case (of course, there's a paradox there, because, if women had been on the bench in the 1800s, say, gender dynamics would have looked very differently than they were).
Of course I agree that the Dred Scott ruling denied the humanity of blacks, that was explicitly the point. I also agree that a court with black justices would not have ruled that way, in the unlikely event that a court with black judges was asked to rule on the humanity of blacks. A court made up of latinas and Asians could, but then I'm not sure what you're trying to convince me of. If it's that diversity on the court is a good thing, I agree. If I were nominating the next three Justices, none of them would be men and at least one would be Asian.
The reason I think her statement was chauvinistic is that she didn't say a latina would have a more nuanced view than a white male. She didn't say that a court with a diverse makeup would come to a better conclusion than a WASPy male court. She said (hoped) that a latina would make a better decision than a white man. I don't think this statement of hers is particularly *important*, but even she's acknowledged that it wasn't a great thing to say. Some think she was regretting the way people interpreted it, a la those non-apology apologies everyone finds so classy and sincere. I choose to take her at her word that she doesn't believe she should have said it.
The passage below follows her "wise Latina" comment & gives the appropriate context. The kind of humility she suggests is what we should expect from judges. Full speech at url below...Sorry if I came across condescending/antagonistic Aleks, it wasn't my intent!
“Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage…Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I re-evaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires…I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
Thank you. In case it isn't obvious enough, I don't think for a moment that Sotomayor is a "racist," or any kind of racial partisan. If I were appearing in her court and my testimony were held up against that of a latina, I don't think she would be particularly biased against me. In the famous Ricci case, her ruling was in line with both Supreme Court precedent and the lower court's ruling.
But, from your link, within context:
"First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope 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.
Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown."
I am not stupid. I am not illiterate. I am not in any way inclined to see Sotomayor in a negative light. But I do not see how "I would hope that a wise [person like me] with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a [person from a different demographic] who hasn't lived that life" isn't chauvinistic. Everyone should be proud of their heritage. But that's not what she expressed in that sentence
Josh Marshall explains some of the stature gap between Sotomayor and Graham, Hatch, Sessions, etc.:
"I'm listening to Sen. Hatch (R-UT) browbeating Judge Sotomayor on the Ricci case. And I'm reminded of the ever-present nature of the exchanges between senators and nominees in this exchanges -- brain vs. brawn.
"It's not that senators are dumb. A lot of them are extremely sharp. But certainly not all of them. And more to the point, with all but a few exceptions, they are at best amateurs at judicial interpretation. On the other hand, across the ideological spectrum, the Supreme Court nominees are almost without exception, extremely bright people, trained in a discipline that sharpens the skills of logical reasoning and argument. And they really, really know constitutional law. [...]
"In any case, on almost every front of intellect and knowledge, the judges have the senators wildly overmatched. And yet, the senators have the power. " http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/just_an_observation.php?ref=fpblg
Not to mention that she's holding all the aces. If every Republican decided to do everything in their power to block her, they still couldn't.
As Dianne Feinstein said (to paraphrase) - I think the patience and grace she is showing dealing with these assholes and her calm and measured responses are a clear indication of what her "judicial temperament" is.
She's a more patient person than I am, that's for sure.
She's applying (being hazed) for a really good job with lifetime tenure. She's got reason to be patient.
true. sitting through several days of being browbeaten by people who are uneducated in your field is really a drop in the bucket when weighed against the lifetime position of supreme (ha) importance she's sure to step into at the end of the hearings.
on the other hand, it makes me somewhat uneasy that such an important position is filled using such a backwards and, in my opinion, poorly though-out process. i mean, repeatedly seeing senators spending ten minutes going over high school civics stuff and then asking a brief question that makes little sense is, well, disheartening. it's nice that she patiently corrects the congresspeople when they're completely off-the-mark in regards to the way the law works - and she does it in a way that doesn't even make them look dumb (which, given some of the questions, is a feat).
i mean, if it's about Sotomayor, yeah, cool, whatever... she can take it and the reward is well worth the stupidity. however, this isn't just about her. this is about our country and the way it's run and, frankly, it's not very encouraging. everyone's trying to get in their talking points on either why she's a temperamental "racist" or how they're personally connected to her and inspired by her story. either side is full of shit and it just generally strikes me as an idiotic process. unless someone is wholly not qualified to sit on any appellate bench (ie, miers), these hearings are meaningless.
Good analysis.
It's like watching a Ph.D before a tenure committee composed of the homecoming court.
The main problem is the pretense that the Court is not political. Republicans are inclined to vote against Sotomayor because she's expected to uphold the liberal position, just as most Democrats voted against Roberts because he was chosen to interpret the law in line with conservative principles. But no one will admit that what they want in a Justice is purely political, so they have to do a whole song and dance about specious reasons the judge appointed by the other party isn't qualified on the merits.
You're absolutely right. But I can still be really sad about it, right? I can't believe it's always been this way... I mean, even since we instituted the perversion of democracy known as two-party politics.
I think the parties are more ideologically and regionally homogeneous than they've been at most times in history, that could be an element of it. Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Gingrich and Bush II wiped out the conservative southern Democrats, and now Bush II has also pretty much annihilated the liberal northern Republicans.
The paradigm works for me. I'm glad Obama picked a latina as a matter of both social justice and smart electoral politics, but I really don't care about her personality or personal issues/views, only that she'll presumably vote the way I want. Roberts seems like a nice guy and Scalia is a nasty piece of work, but what matters is that they're both young, dependable votes for the conservative position, with Roberts more dangerous since he's Chief Justice.
How does that paradigm work for you? I'm genuinely curious. We have a strongly divided country that can't come together to solve real issues (like security and economic stability and such) because they're too busy trying to court highly partisan votes. In the midst of all this chaos, while the people's needs routinely are not met by our governing bodies, there's enough smoke and mirrors for a ridiculous amount of gladhanding and pork barrel bullshit that both sides engage in with glee.
Further, there's a huge amount of distrust between different citizens of this nation - a distrust that's unnecessary, destructive and distracting from the real issues we have to face, such as a crumbling economy and a dire health care crisis.
On top of that, what the voters actually want and need never figures into the picture because the voters only have two choices and, regardless of their politics, they vote as my parents always have - for the lesser of two evils. That's no way for a citizenry to live - even if it's all we know. This calcified two party crap doesn't allow for any meaningful discourse or creative and intellectually curious solutions to very real problems. So, we continue to treat substance abuse as a criminal justice issue rather than a public health issue and no one can step out from that. So, we continue to lock up young people at remarkable rates in the quest for having a "tough on crime" record while not dealing with the root causes of criminality (poverty, poor education, substance abuse, poor mental health, etc.)
I don't like this paradigm. At all.
Now, there's a chance that that's not what you were talking about, in which case I just wrote a bunch of stuff for no reason... but, hey, at least I got it off my chest, right?
I don't like the scientific, multicultural, or political illiteracy common to so much of this country. I don't like that lack of critical thinking voters display, or the way the media operates on trivialities and faux even-handedness. I also don't like how far to the right the baseline is compared to the rest of the industrialized world. Those are outside the specific element I was referring to, the relatively clear cut lines on most issues between Democrats and Republicans.
I do like knowing that my vote for a liberal representative or senator is generally a vote for liberal committee chairs, and that my liberal presidential candidate will appoint liberal judges. When the parties were more heterogeneous, my vote for a liberal Democrat in Minnesota would likely have been a vote for several very conservative southern Democrats as committee chairmen. In the House and Senate, committees are choke points where bills that would have won a popular vote die (see Max Baucus now). Back when the Democratic Party was the party of both blacks and white supremacists (the FDR coalition that Nixon's Southern Strategy dismantled), my votes for liberals from Minnesota might have kept segregationists in control in Washington.
Specifically back to the Court, I have a reasonably clear choice: I like judges such as Sotomayor, so I voted for Obama, Amy Kloubacher and Al Franken. If I'd liked judges such as Alito and Roberts, I could have voted for McCain and Norm Coleman. Well no, never under any circumstances Norm Coleman.
I loved her response which was basically, "Those lawyers can't take the heat." Hahahhaa.
It's so awesome to see her intellectually handle all those senators. She's awesome!
I loved her response which was basically, "Those lawyers can't take the heat." Hahahhaa.
It's so awesome to see her intellectually handle all those senators. She's awesome!
And was it Sen. Graham or Sessions that told her (paraphrasing) that if the "whole judge thing didn't work out, don't become a speech writer because what you write is crazy"? How absolutely infantile and condescending. This woman has extreme patience with these asshats.
Oh, and here's a great link to a Democracy Now! story about how twenty-three years ago, the Senate rejected Sessions' confirmation to the federal bench, in part because he called the NAACP and the ACLU "un-American" and "Communist-inspired." http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/14/sessions
He also said that the KKK would be swell guys if they would stop smoking pot.
So he just became a senator instead? Well that makes perfect sense!
Senator from Alabama.
Actually, during, before and after his nomination, he served as an Alabamian US Attorney. He then went on to be elected as Alabama's Attorney General before become Senator. So, really, his influence and power with regards to the execution of the law goes back even farther than the date of his nomination to be a federal judge.
"Because when white dudes are strong, they're just powerful. When women of color are strong, they're scary"
I think this is not entirely right. It may be that there is resistance to the exhibition of power by women in some public offices, but I think in general, people are more afraid at the base level, of men more than women.
I don't think the issue is that they are scary, but that there is a feeling that somehow these women have overstepped their boundaries. This is due to some implicit assumptions about the social advantages that women have that men don't have.
I think maybe scary is not the right word, but I definitely think that women in positions of authority deal with a lot of temperament policing - usually from men who are unaccustomed to or disapproving of women not acting defentially toward them. My mother works as a probation officer, and over the years she has dealt with a number of complaints from male clients. The substance of these complaints is often something like "she raised an eyebrow when I answered her question" or "her arms were crossed in a hostile fashion". I kid you not - these are actual sentences clients have used to complain.
So I would not be at all surprised if there is a set of lawyers with similar issues with women who are not all soft-spoken, trusting, and full of smiles. And I suspect Graham is latching on to those complaints because really there isn't a lot else to raise against Sotomayor.
Even when I disagree with Graham he usually comes across as reasonable. This was some crazy BS though! What a jerk!
Why would we want anything besides a tough judge for our Supreme Court? I think he just making criticism for her being a tough woman, a woman who is outspoken and does her job. A man would never be asked these questions.
Sen. Coburn told Sotomayor she'd have some "splainin' to do."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/15/coburn-evokes-ricky-ricar_n_233555.html
The "tempermental" Latina (or Latino) is an old racist cliche. What's he gonna call her, "spicy" next?
I'm sorry, but even if in some way she did mean to imply she knows a lot more shit about life and the world because she's a Latina from struggling family who worked her ass off to get where she is now, I'm inclined to believe it's probably true. There are worse things in the world (and worse people) to freak out about.
@Kat - Thanks you so much for bringing up the Ricki Ricardo thing. Am I the only one who finds this completely outrageous? This is a 50 year old plus steroetype of the illspoken immigrant who has a fiesty temper. And oh yeah, his dippy red-headed wife is always trying to outsmart him and usually fails.* I agree it looks worse in writing than when heard but it is still totally obnoxious. I cannot imagine anyone at my company saying that for instance, to the comptroller giving a quarterly report.
Would it be "funny" to say "What you taklin' 'bout Willis to the President?"
I haven't seen this brought up too much so perhaps I am overreacting. Usually I just roll my eyes, but this? I hope the Judge uses this to her advantage to show how one can be quoted out of context.
Oh "it makes me somewhat uneasy that such an important position is filled using such a backwards and, in my opinion, poorly though-out process. i mean, repeatedly seeing senators spending ten minutes going over high school civics stuff and then asking a brief question that makes little sense is, well, disheartening."
In this case at least, you can take heart in the fact that the candidate was chosen by a former professor of constitutional law from the Univ. of Chicago.
*I did like the show as a child. As an adult, I have extremely mixed feelings about the Lucy character.
I'm very white and pasty and thought it was extremely offensive. I told my dad about it (equally white and pasty but grew up in a mostly Latin@ community) and he thought it was too. I don't think there's any way you can get around it being completely offensive.
Did anyone catch Sen. Graham on Thursday when he hinted that he would vote for Sotomayor. He gave this whole speech about gun control and activists judges and it sounded really pro-choice! I doubt it will ever dawn on him that the his arguments are working against himself. I wrote a bit about it http://constantlyconflicted.blogspot.com/2009/07/who-said-this.html
I was very pleased with the questions given by Sen Graham on Tuesday's confirmation hearing. I felt they were fair and to the point. Why cant we hold someone accountable for the words they speak or the actions they take. She clearly avoided questions that would contradict herself from her past speech's to the group of college students. The only thing i have to say is. I HOPE THAT BITCH DOES NOT GET INTO OUR SUPREME COURT. Oh and by the way gun control mean being able to hit the target of the stupid ass bitch liberals who will try to come in my house and take my guns. 2nd amendment right in a strict constructionist view.
have a nice day,