U.S. district judge reject leads Sotomayor opposition

Sen. Jeff Sessions (Image from wikimedia.org)
Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Senator who led the charge against Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation yesterday, continued his assault against Sotomayor today. It’s no secret that Sessions fears Sotomayor will inject “racial bias” into her court decisions, a baseless anxiety made all the more laughable coming from Sessions, a man accused by multiple witnesses of being a racist himself.
Sessions, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said he assumes Sotomayor understood and supported the stance of a civil rights group she advised in the 1980s that brought several race discrimination lawsuits for minorities who challenged jobs or promotions given to white employees.
“It raises questions about, is that her philosophy, and is she going to carry that to the courts and apply it even if the law does not support it?” Sessions told Fox News.
The fact that Sessions is even allowed into the room (and permitted to hurl accusations of racism at Sotomayor) during this confirmation hearing baffles the mind. When he was a US attorney in Alabama, Sessions reportedly called the NAACP an “un-American” and “Communist” organization, called a black attorney “boy” and warned him to “be careful what you say to white folks.” Sessions now says none of these accusations are true, and he claims he was “caricatured,” even though at the time, multiple witnesses made the claims.
Sessions unsuccessfully prosecuted three civil rights workers (including Albert Turner, a former aide to Martin Luther King, Jr.), on a supposed case of election fraud for the 1984 election. A June 17, 1985 Chicago Tribune article quotes Maryland state Sen. Clarence Mitchell, chairman of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators: “This is a blatantly racist investigation, no question about it. … The Justice Department has vigorously pursued this action in Alabama counties where blacks have gained political control while ignoring calls for vote-fraud investigations in neighboring counties where whites hold political control.”
Sessions was nominated by President Reagan in 1986 to be a U.S. district judge. However, the Senate Judiciary Committee killed the nomination on a 9-9 vote, partly because some critics of Sessions testified that he had demonstrated “gross insensitivity” on racial issues. A U.S. attorney had testified that he had heard Sessions claim that he had once admired the Ku Klux Klan.
At the time, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said the vote sends “a clear signal to the Reagan administration that their judicial nominees must meet at least a minimum standard of sensitivity” on civil rights.
And yet, this district judge reject, who has been accused of allowing his racist biases to influence his courtroom behavior multiple times, is now leading the charge against the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, the woman who would be the Supreme Court’s first Hispanic justice. Today’s New York Times live blog of the confirmation reports (emphasis mine):
Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican, has started to cut off Judge Sotomayor’s answers as he tries to show that she’s now contradicting things she’s said in the past about how her experiences may influence her decisions.
Sessions Grills on Policy-Making | 10:14 a.m.: Toward the beginning, [Sessions] asked for an explanation about what she’d meant at a law conference when she said that appellate judges got to make policy. She said it would be clear — if people listened to her entire remarks rather than watching a snippet on YouTube — that she was not suggesting judges make policy as Congress does. She said that it was “very clear that I was talking about the policy ramifications of precedent, and never talking about appellate judges or courts making the policy that Congress makes.”Mr. Sessions: “I don’t think it’s that clear.”
Word Play | 10:21 a.m. Judge Sotomayor, confronted by Senator Sessions about how her take on a wise Latina’s decisions differed from that of Judge Miriam Cedarbaum, pointed out that Ms. Cedarbaum was her friend and was sitting in the audience. (In one of her speeches, Ms. Sotomayor had referred to Ms. Cedarbaum’s discussions about the number of women joining the bench and whether those numbers were having any impact.)
Mr. Sessions repeatedly said he was “troubled” and very concerned as to whether she could be impartial if she couldn’t put her experiences aside. Ms. Sotomayor replied that she believed she did apply the facts to each case, and applied the law.
But as far as the “wise Latina judge” remarks, Ms. Sotomayor relented a little bit, saying she had attempted a play on words that “fell flat. It was bad.”
How has no one (I’m looking at you, Al Franken) turned to Sessions and said, “Really, Jeff? Really? You’re afraid a judge is going to inject racial bias into her decision-making process? Really?? Aren’t you the guy who is BFFs with the clan and tried to take down Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assistant? Really??”
The hypocrisy is mind-boggling. Unsurprising, but mind-boggling.



















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