Live From The Sotomayor Hearings

The New York Times is live-blogging the hearings. Senator Pete Sessions sets the tone for the Republicans.

Senator Sessions spares no words. Shortly into his speech, he declares that this confirmation hearing and nomination by President Obama marks a fork in the road. He said he was worried by President Obama’s decision to include empathy as a qualification for the Supreme Court.

As pointed out here before, empathy or ethnic background, which will also surely arise, wasn’t a problem for Republicans at the hearing of Samuel Alito.

U.S. SENATOR TOM COBURN (R-OK): Can you comment just about Sam Alito, and what he cares about, and let us see a little bit of your heart and what’s important to you in life?

ALITO: Senator, I tried to in my opening statement, I tried to provide a little picture of who I am as a human being and how my background and my experiences have shaped me and brought me to this point.

[…]

…when a case comes before me involving, let’s say, someone who is an immigrant — and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases — I can’t help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn’t that long ago when they were in that position.

Orrin Hatch made an interesting statement:

Mr. Hatch notes that Judge Sotomayor, if confirmed, “will help change the very precedents that today bind her as a U.S. Circuit Judge. In other words, the judicial position to which she has been nominated is quite different than the judicial position she now occupies.”

So, wouldn’t this let her off the hook for any decisions she made as a Circuit Court judge such as the Ricci decision?

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.