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ASSESSING JUDGE SONIA SOTOMAYOR BEFORE HER CONFIRMATION HEARINGS

By Christopher M. Gacek, Cathy Cleaver Ruse, and Michael Fragoso

Based on information now publicly available about Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the Family Research Council must stand in opposition to her confirmation. The existing evidence shows that Judge Sotomayor lacks a proper understanding of the role of judges and the judiciary in our constitutional system. Unless her Senate confirmation hearings provide evidence to the contrary, we must conclude that Judge Sotomayor stands outside the historic mainstream of American legal thought.

Sotomayor is a judicial activist who has no qualms about imposing her policy preferences from the bench, rather than interpreting the law as written. Judicial activism is anathema to our system of government. It undermines the very basis of our representative democracy and deprives the American people of their right to govern themselves on the most important issues of the day. For Americans concerned chiefly about life, family, and faith issues, the prospect of confirming a justice who believes she "makes policy" from the bench is absolutely unacceptable.

That we now have a more accurate understanding of Judge Sotomayor's judicial philosophy is not due to the President's forthrightness about his nominee and her record. Rather, the President has seen fit to trumpet Judge Sotomayor's supposed "empathy," which is a quality the President famously admires in a judge. Yet what has come to light in recent months about her record shows this supposed empathy to be a mask for deciding winners and losers based upon political ideology rather than the principle of equal justice for all. It does not include empathy for unborn children, for white and Latino firefighters from New Haven, for property owners who have their land taken from them by greedy towns, or for Americans who believe in their right to established Second Amendment freedoms. In Judge Sotomayor's world, "empathy" is only owed to groups or classes favored by the political Left. In Judge Sotomayor's world, "empathy" is an excuse for bias.