Sotomayor's journey
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IN NOMINATING federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor for the nation's highest court yesterday, President Obama stressed her "extraordinary journey" from public housing in the South Bronx to the upper reaches of the judicial system. But despite her personal history, Sotomayor's professional record is notable less for its iconoclasm than for its steadiness and solidity.
Sotomayor, now a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, would become the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court. By any measure, she is well prepared for the job. A graduate of Princeton and Yale Law School, she has worked as a prosecutor and as a corporate lawyer in civil cases. And her previous service as a federal district court judge would be a crucial addition to the court.
Currently, only departing Justice David Souter has experience as a trial judge. By proposing Sotomayor as his replacement, Obama has answered his own complaint that current Supreme Court justices - most of whom entered the federal judiciary at the lofty appellate level - often consider cases through too abstract a prism.
Some liberal activists hoped that Obama would seek a firebrand to counter Antonin Scalia, the darling of the right. Yet Sotomayor has made her reputation not on hot-button social issues but on matters ranging from environmental regulation to the baseball business. While she presumably shares Obama's support for abortion rights, she upheld Bush-administration restrictions on family-planning activities by US-funded nonprofits overseas.
Even so, conservative groups have seized upon an offhand remark in 2005 - her description of federal appeals courts as the place "where policy is made" - as evidence that Sotomayor would legislate from the bench. The attack is disingenuous; appellate judges by necessity guide lower courts among competing interpretations of often ambiguous laws. Sotomayor's critics would fault her for even acknowledging the power that appellate judges wield.
Despite a strong Democratic majority in the Senate, Obama's nominee should be ready for probing confirmation hearings. In a crucial affirmative-action case, she voted to uphold New Haven's ability to throw out a promotion exam in which minority firefighters fared poorly, but the judges did not explain their reasoning. Senators should press for her analysis of the issue. Sotomayor also has little record on the limits of executive power - which has emerged as a vital issue in the years since Sept. 11.
Short of any unexpected revelations about her record or her philosophy, though, the Senate should confirm Sonia Sotomayor. However intriguing her personal background, she also has the experience to make an excellent Supreme Court justice.
