Obama nominates Sonia Sotomayor for Supreme Court
President Obama nominated federal Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, 54, to the U.S. Supreme Court who replaces retiring Justice David Souter — who had comprised the 5-4 pro-abortion majority on the high court.
Obama hailed Sotomayor as an “inspiring woman who I believe will be a great justice.”
“Judge Sotomayor has worked at almost every level of our judicial system, providing her with a depth of experience and breadth of perspective that will be invaluable as a Supreme Court justice,” Obama said.
Although her confirmation will most likely pass with relative ease, her nomination will draw opposition from conservatives. However, Sotomayor, in the one abortion-related case ruled against the pro-choice group. She rejected arguments from pro-choice advocates that their Constitutional rights were being restrained by the Bush’s administration’s policy of limiting family planning money to overseas non-profit groups.
Interestingly, Sotomayor ruled against an abortion rights group that attempted to challenge the federal ban on funding to international family planning groups that provide abortion. Sotomayor upheld the Bush administration’s implementation of the “Mexico City Policy” which requires foreign organizations receiving U.S. funds to “neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations,” in Center for Reproductive Law and Policy v. Bush.
Sotomayor stated that the policy did not constitute a violation of equal protection, in which the government “is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position, and can do so with public funds.” President Obama signed an executive order on January 23, 2009, reversing the ban that prohibits funding to international family planning groups that provide abortions.
Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Conformation Network, criticized her support for “quotas” and “racial preferences.” She claimed Sotomayor is “a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written.”
In addition, Sotomayor will come under intense scrutiny for her comments during a Duke University panel discussion held in February 2005, in which she said that judges make policy.
“All of the legal defense funds out there, they’re looking for people with Court of Appeals experience. Because it is — Court of Appeals is where policy is made. And I know, and I know, that this is on tape, and I should never say that.” Watch the Video here: “Court of Appeals is where policy is made”.
Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic on the high court if confirmed.
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