SCOTUS pick: Sonia Sotomayor

[bahamaman]

It is also interesting that the Supreme Court has reversed three of the five Sotomayor decisions they have heard since she has been on the Appeals Court. While a 60% reversal rate seems rather high, it would be useful to know an average for all appellate rulings before making a judgment. Anyone know how to get that stat?

During the 2006-2007 term of the Supreme Court, the % of reversals was in the high 60s, in the previous term the reversal rate was above 70%. Given the discretion the Court has over which cases it hears, perhaps it should come as no surprise that the mere act of agreeing to hear a case is a hint that at least some members of the Court aren't comfortable with its outcome.

Source: http://www.newsweek.com/id/199955

 

[Rich]

Thanks for the info. bahamaman. Real facts like that help to put things into proper perspective. Her decisions that have been appealed haven't been overturned any more than normal, and she has had an incredibly low number of cases appealed (1.3% of her overall decisions).

 

[repman]

Why cant people just be honest and say

Oh by the way she is a Latino woman and that is exactly why she was picked over any White, Black, Asian, male that would be equally qualified.

President Obama picked her for the simple reason he wants to be the first to appoint a Latino to the supreme court plain and simple its PURE POLITICS he got 67% of the Latino vote and here is the payback

I am not faulting him for it the other side would do the exact same thing given a role reversal thats what politics has come down to in our country

Why are people trying so hard to prove with statistics and facts why she is the right choice

I mentioned before she may be very well qualified but that is not the reason she was picked if we are being honest

 

[bahamaman]

Why are people trying so hard to prove with statistics and facts why she is the right choice

Actually, the statistic was offered, not to prove she was the right choice, but to rebut the earlier assertions that her "reversal rate" was out of the ordinary and indicative of her lacking the requisite competence for the job on the Court.

 

[repman]

Actually, the statistic was offered, not to prove she was the right choice, but to rebut the earlier assertions that her "reversal rate" was out of the ordinary and indicative of her lacking the requisite competence for the job on the Court.

Fair enough,

Can we then agree then that she was picked because she was a Latino/female?

 

[twich54]

Can we then agree then that she was picked because she was a Latino/female?

may I preface "Latino / female" with the word...'Qualified' !

 

[repman]

may I preface "Latino / female" with the word...'Qualified' !

You may, so then can we agree that she was picked because she was a qualified/Latino/ female who was picked for political expedience

We keep dancing, but my premise is that she would have been picked over any other QUALIFIED female/Male jurist because it makes sense politically

 

[twich54]

my premise is that she would have been picked over any other QUALIFIED female/Male jurist because it makes sense politically

yes.....maybe.....whatever.....my take is she was selected by an individual with a level of inteligence that has not been seen in the White House in a long time. So, with that being said I WANT to believe Mr Obama engaged his brain as well.

 

[bahamaman]

Fair enough,

Can we then agree then that she was picked because she was a Latino/female?

I can agree with that, at least if you would accept two caveats. Her ethnicity, while certainly a factor, is not the sole reason she was picked. That she graduated at the top of her Princeton class (undergrad), her having been the editor of the Yale Law Review, and her long record of service as a Federal judge must have also weighed heavily in the decision. Any fair review of her accomplishments would cause one to conclude that she is enormously competent.

Secondly, one could additionally argue that that it is entirely appropriate that the Supreme Court not be the sole bastion of white men. Our country is diverse, and it seems imminently reasonable that the court should reflect that diversity.

[Edit: of course, the Supreme Court presently has some diversity . . . I was more suggesting that the addition of a Latina is a logical extension of that principle, given the proportion of Latinos in the U.S.]

 

[repman]

I can agree with that, at least if you would accept two caveats. Her ethnicity, while certainly a factor, is not the sole reason she was picked. That she graduated at the top of her Princeton class (undergrad), her having been the editor of the Yale Law Review, and her long record of service as a Federal judge must have also weighed heavily in the decision. Any fair review of her accomplishments would cause one to conclude that she is enormously competent.

Secondly, one could additionally argue that that it is entirely appropriate that the Supreme Court not be the sole bastion of white men. Our country is diverse, and it seems imminently reasonable that the court should reflect that diversity.

[Edit: of course, the Supreme Court presently has some diversity . . . I was more suggesting that the addition of a Latina is a logical extension of that principle, given the proportion of Latinos in the U.S.]

I have no problem with that , I am sure her qualifications are intact and that will come out as the process procedes

And I would agree with your " given the proportion of latinos in the U.S."
that President Obama picked a latino to secure the 67% Latino vote for the next election.

How about those Martin Logan speakers !!!!!
That is one thing I think we can all agree on

have a great weekend

 

[bahamaman]

I have no problem with that , I am sure her qualifications are intact and that will come out as the process procedes

And I would agree with your " given the proportion of latinos in the U.S."
that President Obama picked a latino to secure the 67% Latino vote for the next election.

How about those Martin Logan speakers !!!!!
That is one thing I think we can all agree on

have a great weekend

Love my Logans! And yes, I will even grant you the fact that Obama is not unmindful of the potential impact of the appointment for the election of 2012!

 

[risabet]

You may, so then can we agree that she was picked because she was a qualified/Latino/ female who was picked for political expedience

We keep dancing, but my premise is that she would have been picked over any other QUALIFIED female/Male jurist because it makes sense politically

The selection of a SCOTUS nominee is, by design, a political process. Thomas was picked to replaced the first and only black justice, whom he doesn't hold a candle to either intellectually of judicially IMO. Clearly POLITICS! The FFs had two branches weigh-in here to keep a system of checks and balances on what they clearly, at least to me, recognized as having the makings of high political theater. Of course Sotomayor's selection has a clear political dimension. No one I have spoken to about this has any other belief.

 

[repman]

The selection of a SCOTUS nominee is, by design, a political process. Thomas was picked to replaced the first and only black justice, whom he doesn't hold a candle to either intellectually of judicially IMO. Clearly POLITICS! The FFs had two branches weigh-in here to keep a system of checks and balances on what they clearly, at least to me, recognized as having the makings of high political theater. Of course Sotomayor's selection has a clear political dimension. No one I have spoken to about this has any other belief.

And that makes my point, as long as both parties continue to play the political game .

We will never get the best or brightest people for the job because of the political ramifications that always seem to be more important than picking the best PERSON for the job

 

[asindc]

And that makes my point, as long as both parties continue to play the political game .

We will never get the best or brightest people for the job because of the political ramifications that always seem to be more important than picking the best PERSON for the job

I generally agree that the Supreme Court nomination process is highly politicized, but I think it is unfair to the Justices of the past two or three decades to assume that because it is so, we don't get the best and the brightest. In fact, many Supreme Court historians have noted that because a nominee is more scrutinized now than in the past (if you research, you will find that nominations before 1954 rarely lasted more than a couple of weeks), the objective credentials of recent nominees have generally been much better than in the past.

A highly politicized nomination process is not mutually exclusive with choosing someone supremely qualified for the Supreme Court. Note: I did not say "best" because at no point in our history has there been a consensus on who was the "best qualified" at any given time. Heck, you won't even get a consensus from conservatives on who the "best" conservative candidate is, likewise for progressives about who the "best" progressive candidate is. Trying to name the "best" Supreme Court candidate is like asking audiophiles who makes the "best" speaker cables.

 

[FISH_MAN]

Trying to name the "best" Supreme Court candidate is like asking audiophiles who makes the "best" speaker cables.

to bad the justices where not as neutral as the cables

 

[repman]

Trying to name the "best" Supreme Court candidate is like asking audiophiles who makes the "best" speaker cables.

Finally something I can answer with absolute certainty that would be Monster Cable

 

[Rich]

Here we are about to begin the confirmation process and I thought of this thread. Now that the American Bar Association, the International Association of Police Chiefs, and other major law enforcement organizations have given Sotomayor their backing, we begin to see just how silly and misleading the original post in this thread was. I guess it is no wonder the O.P. never bothered to return to the thread to defend it.

And what do the republicans intend to bring up in order to show that Sotomayor is unqualified to serve? Well, they want to trash a public interest legal group, whose board of directors she sat on over seventeen years ago, before she ever became a federal judge.

And they want to call Frank Ricci to testify. That takes the cake. Ricci knows nothing about Sotomayor to testify to, except that she was part of a panel of judges that ruled against his case. The idea is obviously to try to show that she is "outside the mainstream" because the Supreme Court reversed her decision in that case. But then, the Court's vote in that case was 5-4, which means that four of the current Supreme Court Justices agreed with her decision in that case! So, what exactly is the purpose of having Ricci testify? Why, to waste all of our time and money with partisan political trash talk. Americans deserve better than this.

 

[C.A.P]

Americans deserve better than that TO!

 

[Gordon Gray]

Ken,

I just read this thread.

Please tell me why you started this?

Gordon

 

[Kenscollick]

I am a politically active person and a conservative I also believe in the constitution and that it was written not to enable government but to protect the American citizens from government. A supreme court justice is not a position to be taken lightly as they have more control over us than any 2 term president could ever dream of. It is a lifetime position with great voting power to uphold the constitution not to use the position to gain favor with their beliefs either Liberal or conservative. I do not believe that she is a good candidate for the job.

Politics has been discussed on the "off-topic" area before and I felt that is was approite to discuss here.