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Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of July 15, 2009 IS SONIA WORSE THAN SOUTER? Sonia Sotomayor’s "record shows that for the overwhelming majority of Americans who support at least some restrictions on abortion, she is worse than Justice Souter – reading a ‘fundamental right’ to abortion into the Constitution. "On the basic issue of whether Roe v. Wade is settled precedent, Justice Souter is a reliable vote for the high court’s liberal wing. He has refused to take the opportunity, in cases such as Planned Parenthood v. Casey, to re-examine the judicial basis for permitting legal abortion. But when it comes to common-sense restrictions on abortion, Justice Souter has voted repeatedly to uphold laws such as informed consent and parental notification – which polls show are supported by at least 70 percent of the American public." UNDER SONIA, DEATH TO THE UNBORN IS "SETTLED LAW" "Not so Justice Sotomayor, whose activism before becoming a federal judge reveals strong and consistent opposition to common-sense regulations. From 1980 to 1992, she was a governing board member of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF) where, according to the New York Times, she ‘was an involved and ardent supporter of their various legal efforts.’ "Those efforts included no less than six briefs in five abortion-related cases before the Supreme Court – pushing aggressively for an interpretation of abortion rights that would eliminate most or all state and federal abortion regulations while requiring state and federal funding of abortion. In two of those cases, Rust v. Sullivan (1991) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the PRLDEF’s briefs took positions more extreme than those of Justice Souter, who joined with the court’s majority to uphold restrictions the fund wanted struck down." SHE IS WORRIED ABOUT ANTI-ABORTION RELIGIOUS INDOCTRINATION "Justice Sotomayor has never disavowed any of the PRLDEF’s briefs, which are packed with the kind of extreme rhetoric more typical of left-wing blogs than of serious legal documents. They refer to unborn ‘lives’ in derisive scare quotes and claim that minors seeking abortions need to be protected from parents’ religious ‘indoctrination.’ "Witness the fund’s brief in Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health (1990), opposing a parental-notification law (which the Supreme Court would uphold). It questioned ‘whether the ostensible secular purposes [of the law] are ‘sham,’ in light of the fact that abortion is singled out for notice from other, at least, equally life-shaping reproductive choices based on a purpose to save ‘lives,’ and that parents who are religiously opposed to abortion are among its primary beneficiaries.’ "The differences between Justice Souter’s and Justice Sotomayor’s philosophies show up most sharply in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey verdict, in which the court refused to overturn Roe v. Wade but permitted common-sense abortion regulations such as 24-hour reflection periods. "Whereas the PRLDEF asserted in its brief for that case – as in other briefs it filed on Justice Sotomayor’s watch – that abortion was a fundamental right, Justice Souter explicitly denied that it merited the strongest constitutional protection. "The PRLDEF’s argument was that abortion’s constitutionality was akin to free speech – though free speech is protected in the First Amendment, while abortion does not appear in the Constitution. Therefore, the fund argued, regulations against abortion must be subject to the most stringent level of judicial review, known as ‘strict scrutiny.’ "Justice Souter, with Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor, wrote an opinion rejecting the strict-scrutiny standard. Instead, the justices created a new standard of review for abortion regulations, ‘undue burden,’ acknowledging the legality of any regulation that does not place a ‘substantial obstacle in the path of a woman’ seeking a pre-viability abortion. Although Roe remained untouched, Justice Souter’s standard was far less radical than the PRLDEF’s argument that any ‘burden’ upon women seeking abortion was unconstitutional." Source: Charmaine Yoest (president and CEO of Americans United for Life), The Washington Times, 6/22/09, p. A21 Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of June 30, 2009 SONIA SAYS DEATH PENALTY IS RACIST "Justice: Sonia Sotomayor says the death penalty disproportionately impacts minorities. A question for her: Death sentences are meted out most often to (a) blacks, (b) whites, (c) Hispanics or (d) the guilty."EMPATHY FOR MURDERERS "A recently unearthed memo not disclosed on the questionnaire filed with the Senate Judiciary Committee shows that the empathy that the Supreme Court nominee feels is more for the predators among us than their victims. It also shows that some of the reasons this self-proclaimed ‘wise Latina’ has for opposing capital punishment are bogus and flawed. "In her Senate questionnaire, Sotomayor accurately reported that from 1980 to 1982 she worked for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. She also truthfully included an April 19, 1981, letter from the PRLDEF to then-New York Gov. Hugh Carey opposing the reinstatement of the death penalty in that state. That letter was not signed by Sotomayor. "What Sotomayor did sign was a March 24, 1981, memo she and two other members of a PRLDEF task force sent to the PRLDEF board listing reasons for opposing the death penalty. Wendy Long, counsel for the Judicial Confirmation Network, sent a letter Friday to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., noting it was missing from Sotomayor’s document dump. …" SHE WORRIES THAT KILLERS MAY BE TRAUMATIZED "One of the eight reasons Sotomayor et al. give for opposing capital punishment is that it ‘creates inhuman psychological burdens for the offender and his/her family.’ So what about the trauma inflicted on the families of his/her victims? What about the children orphaned, the wives widowed? This is empathy gone terribly wrong. "The Sotomayor memo also says: ‘The problem of crime and society is so complex, it is unreasonable to think that capital punishment will result in preventing it or diminishing it.’ If Sotomayor doesn’t think the death penalty is a deterrent, just ask the family of a prison guard murdered in a state without it. Without the death penalty, such a crime is possible. "Without the death penalty, the clerk of a convenience store being robbed is likelier to be murdered, eliminating the only witness to a crime. In many crimes, if the predator faced the ultimate penalty, the victim might not. "As researcher John Lott Jr. reports: ‘Generally, the studies over the last decade that examined how the murder rates in each state changed as they changed their execution rate found that each execution saved the lives of roughly 15 to 18 potential murder victims.’ " Source: Editorial, Investor’s Business Daily, 6/9/09, p. A12 SOROS, STREISAND, AND TURNER SPONSORED SONIA "Sotomayor lists an appearance before the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, a left-wing group funded by the Open Society Institute of George Soros, the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, Ted Turner’s Better World Fund, and the Barbra Streisand Foundation. Sponsors of the American Constitution Society have included the ACLU Foundation, the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, and the National Lesbian & Gay Law Association. If there were ever any doubt about Sotomayor’s left-wing credentials, her involvement with the American Constitution Society clears it all up." Source: Cliff Kincaid, Accuracy in Media (www.aim.org), 6/4/09 Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of June 15, 2009 SONIA IN STRONG SUPPORT OF "ABORTION RIGHTS" "[F]rom 1980 until October 1992, Judge [Sonia] Sotomayor served on the board – at times as vice president and at times as chairman of the litigation committee – of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. The New York Times in 1992 described her as ‘a top policy maker on the board.’ During that time period, the fund filed briefs in not one, not two, but at least six prominent court cases in strong support of ‘abortion rights.’ " SHE IS ON RECORD AS PRO-"ROE" "The cases began with an abortion-funding case, Williams v. Zbaraz, just as she joined the board, and they continued through the landmark cases of Rust v. Sullivan, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Especially in the Webster case, in which all nine justices joined at least part of the decision saying that states need not provide public funds for abortions, the fund supported positions far more pro-abortion than the court itself did. Also, in the case Ohio v. Akron Center, the fund wrote that it ‘opposes any efforts to overturn or in any way restrict the rights recognized in Roe v. Wade.’ " SHE SUPPORTS LATE-TERM ABORTIONS "No statement could be more categorical. The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund thus presumably would oppose any restriction, including those on late-term abortions, partial-birth abortions, abortions for minors and the like. "It is possible to serve on the board of a group while not being responsible for a single random legal brief. However, Judge Sotomayor’s group filed such suits at least six times – and as the New York Times reported on May 28 (while discussing a different case), ‘The board monitored all litigation undertaken by the fund’s lawyers, and a number of those lawyers said Ms. Sotomayor was an involved and ardent supporter of their various legal efforts.’ " SOTOMAYOR WANTS TO LIBERALIZE AUTHORITY OF LEGAL SERVICES LAWYERS "Even more evidence comes from a passage she included in numerous speeches urging young lawyers to do pro bono work. In all those speeches, she referred – apparently in sorrow – to a 1996 law prohibiting federal funds from being used to support ‘class-action lawsuits or lawsuits involving abortion, illegal immigration and welfare reform.’ In the 2001 speech for Brooklyn Law School’s commencement, she went further, praising efforts to ‘address the need created by this legislation. These efforts…are not enough. The need is very great.’ In other words, there is a ‘great’ need to make up for the lack of federal funding for pro-abortion lawsuits (and for class-action, pro-immigration and anti-welfare-reform suits as well). That is not a direct statement of support for such suits, but it hints strongly in that direction – especially in the context of Judge Sotomayor’s entire jurisprudential approach and of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund’s long pro-choice advocacy. "In general, judicial nominees shouldn’t be considered on the basis of just one legal issue. It makes even less sense to grudgingly support a nominee in the mere hope that she might support your ‘side’ on one issue. There is no reason to support Judge Sotomayor’s nomination in the hope that she is pro-life when most of the evidence points in the other direction." Source: Editorial, The Washington Times, 6/10/09, p. A20 SONIA WOULD KILL THE DEATH PENALTY "Critics of Judge Sonia Sotomayor seized Friday on her failure to include a 1981 memo opposing the death penalty in her response to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s questionnaire. …" SHE "FORGOT" TO INCLUDE EVIDENCE OF HER POSITION "Wendy Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, which opposes the nominee, said Judge Sotomayor’s questionnaire submission should have included a 1981 paper she wrote for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, urging New York to keep its ban on the death penalty." IS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT RACIST? "The memo, signed by Judge Sotomayor and two other members of the group, listed eight arguments against the death penalty, including that ‘capital punishment is associated with evident racism in our society,’ because minorities are disproportionately represented on death row." Source: Naftali Bendavid, The Wall Street Journal, 6/6-7/09, p. A3 WOULD "JUSTICE" SOTOMAYOR PUSH FOR PUERTO RICO STATEHOOD? "Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s student note in the 1979 Yale Law Journal is a piece of work. It makes an extravagant case for Puerto Rican statehood based on terms of accession that are more favorable to Puerto Rico than any other state in the Union. Her proposal is a sort of affirmative action plan for what she describes as a ‘small, economically poor dependency’ acquired as a result of the ‘American experience with colonialism.’ " SHOULD PUERTO RICO CONTROL OFFSHORE OIL? "While her legal arguments are complex, her economic and political conclusions are simple: Puerto Rico should become a state and accede to the Union in a manner that grants her ownership rights over the offshore oil, gas and mineral deposits within a two-hundred mile radius of Puerto Rico. It should do so despite the fact that no other state enjoys similar rights and despite over two centuries of federal practice that provide for states to enter the Union ‘on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever.’ "Sotomayor argues that ‘[t]he island’s dearth of land-based resources and its ongoing economic stagnation and poverty, coupled with the possibility of offshore oil and mineral wealth, will create political pressure for Puerto Rico to demand exclusive rights to exploit its surrounding seabed…. The inclusion of such a provision in Puerto Rico’s compact of admission could be politically necessary and practically essential.’ "She recognizes that such terms for statehood would meet with opposition because it would mean Puerto Rico would not enter the Union on an equal footing with other states. She also recognizes that Supreme Court precedent poses a serious problem, particularly restrictions that prevent accession terms limiting the ‘paramount power of the United States in favor of a State.’ But she interprets this precedent as a statutory rather than a constitutional limitation, and argues that ‘Congress … can alienate seabed rights in any way it chooses’ including in an agreement of accession to the Union. ‘Therefore,’ she argues, ‘Puerto Rico should seek a specific grant of seabed rights in a compact of admission’ that would grant Puerto Rico rights to explore, exploit, conserve and manage the living and non-living natural resources within a two-hundred mile radius." SHE URGES SPECIAL RIGHTS FOR HER ANCESTRAL HOMELAND "Finally, to prevent federal environmental regulations from harming the value of these seabed rights, she argues that Puerto Rico should negotiate terms that would require the United States to pay for the right to regulate Puerto Rican waters. Recognizing that environmental regulations are not compensable takings under the Fifth Amendment, she argues that Puerto Rico should negotiate a special formula for compensation that would compensate Puerto Rico as if such environmental regulations were an unlawful taking. ‘Puerto Rico and the United States could agree that compensation be provided for those losses that courts normally find noncompensable, and could provide a formula for calculating the compensation’ based on the fair market value of the loss profits that would result from such environmental regulation." Source: Roger Alford, http://opiniojuris.org, 6/3/09 SONIA SEEKS SPECIAL RIGHTS FOR PUERTO RICANS "In the 1980s, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund sued the New York City Police Department, claiming that its promotion exams discriminated against Latinos and African-Americans. "The fund, one of the advocacy groups pressing similar cases across the country, also helped redraw voting districts in the city that increased the number of Hispanic elected officials. The defense fund even sued a former Reagan administration official for defamation after he claimed that virtually all Puerto Ricans in New York received food stamps. "All those efforts were backed by the defense fund’s board of directors, an active and passionate group that included a young lawyer named Sonia Sotomayor, who this week was chosen by President Obama to join the country’s highest court. "Ms. Sotomayor’s involvement with the defense fund has so far received scant attention. But her critics, including some Republican senators who will vote on her nomination, have questioned whether she has let her ethnicity, life experiences and public advocacy creep into her decisions as a judge. It seems inevitable, then, that her tenure with the defense fund will be scrutinized during her confirmation hearings. …" SHE OPPOSES THE DEATH PENALTY FOR PUERTO RICAN KILLERS "Founded in 1972, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which recently changed its name to LatinoJustice PRLDEF, is a public-interest law group with its own long record of civil rights battles. Ms. Sotomayor joined its board in 1980 when she was a young prosecutor in Manhattan and fresh out of Yale Law School. It was full of young, idealistic Latino lawyers like her who were eager to make a mark. … "But Ms. Sotomayor stood out, frequently meeting with the legal staff to review the status of cases, several former members said. And so across her 12 years on the board – she left when she was appointed a federal judge in 1992 – she played an active role as the defense fund staked out aggressive stances on issues like police brutality, the death penalty and voting rights. …" "BILINGUAL EDUCATION" OFTEN MEANS GHETTOIZING SPANISH SPEAKERS "Its efforts helped bring bilingual education to public schools around the country. In 1981, the fund filed a lawsuit that prompted a federal court, on the eve of the city’s primary elections, to block voting in New York City. The suit, supported by Ms. Sotomayor and the rest of the board, alleged that the new City Council district boundaries diminished the influence of minority voters. … "Ms. Sotomayor was part of a three-person committee of the board that recommended in 1981 that the fund oppose the reinstitution of the death penalty in New York State, according to board minutes from that time. " ‘Capital punishment is associated with evident racism in our society,’ the panel wrote. ‘It creates inhuman psychological burdens for the offender and his/her family.’ " SHE BACKS QUOTAS FOR UNDERACHIEVING HISPANICS "One of the legal defense fund’s most important suits charged that a Police Department promotional exam discriminated against minority candidates. The exams, the group charged, did not really measure the ability to perform in a more senior position, and were yielding unfair results: Too many whites were doing well, and too many Hispanics and African-Americans were not. " ‘We saw the lawsuit as a vehicle to level the playing field,’ said [executive director Cesar A.] Perales. ‘It’s important to understand that she and the rest of the board, in that context, shared the philosophy that we had to remove the barriers to the advancement of Latinos.’ "The suit resulted in a settlement with the city that produced greater numbers of promotions to sergeant for Latino and African-American officers. "Some white officers, however, felt that the settlement was unfair. They said that many white officers had outscored their Hispanic and African-American counterparts, yet were not allowed to fill the spots because of quotas. They sued, and their case, Marino v. Ortiz, reached the Supreme Court, where it failed by a 4-to-4 vote in 1988. "Two decades later, as a federal appellate judge, Ms. Sotomayor was again forced by a volatile case to confront the issue of promotion tests and race. She and her colleagues on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit were asked to review a ruling on a claim by white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., that they had lost promotions because of their race – even though they had performed well on the Fire Department’s tests. "Judge Sotomayor voted to affirm the lower court’s dismissal of the case, and her ruling is behind some of the most intense debate about her selection. [Committee for Justice executive director Curt] Levey said that the employment discrimination case filed by the defense fund on behalf of Hispanic police officers raised questions about Judge Sotomayor’s credibility in the New Haven case. ‘It adds to the conviction that this was not accidental, and that she had a very specific agenda here.’ " Source: Raymond Hernandez and David Chen, The New York Times, 5/29/09, pp. 1, A14 SONIA UNDERCUTS CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED PROPERTY RIGHTS "Judge [Sonia] Sotomayor served as the senior judge on one 2006 case, Didden v. Village of Port Chester, which respected University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein described as ‘about as naked an abuse of government power as could be imagined.’ Her judicial panel’s ruling might be the worst violation of property rights ever approved by a federal appeals court. It is part of a pattern of Judge Sotomayor’s pro-government rulings that run roughshod over the most basic of private property rights." DIDDEN CASE WORSE THAN KELO "In the Didden ruling, as in the Supreme Court’s infamous Kelo v. New London decision, the government used its constitutionally limited power of ‘eminent domain’ to force one private owner to turn over land (for a fee) to give it to a private developer. Yet the Didden case was even worse than the Kelo one. When the town of New London, Conn., took Susette Kelo’s home – a rank injustice – the town at least did so after public hearings. The Village of Port Chester, N.Y., took Bart Didden’s land without a public hearing." EMINENT DOMAIN OR EXTORTION? "New London took the land around Ms. Kelo’s house in order to change it from residential use to a commercial use that purportedly was for the public good. Port Chester, to the contrary, did not claim to change the land use for the public good. Instead, it merely gave the land to a private developer who wanted to use it for the same purpose, a pharmacy, as the original owners. Instead of a CVS, the new owner used it for a Walgreens. "In essence, wrote Mr. Epstein and George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin, the taking of private property amounted to ‘out-and-out extortion’ with government support. Yet Judge Sotomayor’s panel not only ruled against Mr. Didden’s property rights, but did so with a bare, six-paragraph order – as Mr. Somin described it, ‘without serious examination of the legal issues to any significant degree.’ "It’s a mystery how the judge could square this case with the Constitution’s requirement that private property can be taken only for ‘public use,’ or with its requirement that ‘no state’ shall pass any ‘law impairing the obligation of contracts.’ " Source: Editorial, The Washington Times, 6/5/09, p. A20 IS SONIA 100% IN ACCORD WITH LA RAZA ON AZTLAN AND AMNESTY? "As President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee comes under heavy fire for allegedly being a ‘racist,’ Judge Sonia Sotomayor is listed as a member of the National Council of La Raza, a group that’s promoted driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, amnesty programs, and no immigration law enforcement by local and state police. … "Meaning ‘the Race,’ La Raza also has connections to groups that advocate the separation of several southwestern states from the rest of America. "Over the past two days, Sotomayor has been heavily criticized for her racially charged statement: ‘I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.’ "The remark was actually made during a 2001 speech at the University of California’s Berkeley School of Law. The lecture was published the following year in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal. … "As WND previously reported, La Raza was condemned in 2007 by former U.S. Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., as a radical ‘pro-illegal immigration lobbying organization that supports racist groups calling for the secession of the western United States as a Hispanic-only homeland.’ "Norwood urged La Raza to renounce its support of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan – which sees ‘the Race’ as part of an ethnic group that one day will reclaim Aztlan, the mythical birthplace of the Aztecs. In Chicano folklore, Aztlan includes California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Texas." Source: Joe Kovacs, www.WorldNetDaily.com, 5/27/09 SONIA’S LA RAZA IS SUBSIDIZED WITH YOUR TAXES "If a group of United States citizens trekked to another country, formed an organization called ‘The Race,’ which demanded open borders, unfettered immigration and citizenship, billions of dollars for bilingual education, health care, housing, job and wage guarantees, and anti-discrimination protection, they would likely soon be jailed or deported in a display of righteous sovereign indignation. But the National Council of La Raza engages in all these activities in the United States, and it receives taxpayer dollars to help promote its radical views." "THE RACE" FAVORS AMNESTY, QUOTAS, AND AZTLAN "Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is a member of La Raza. That membership and her own statements have led to many challenges to her suitability for the High Court. … "La Raza, founded in 1968 by Raul Yzaguirre, takes its name from ‘La Raza Cosmica,’ a phrase coined by Mexican scholar Jose Vasconcelos. The English translation, and the first definition found in Spanish/English dictionaries, for ‘la raza’ is ‘the race.’ Contrary to La Raza’s contention that the phrase means ‘the people,’ or ‘the community,’ the Spanish for those phrases are ‘la gente,’ and ‘la comunidad.’ "In 2005, La Raza received $15.2 million in federal grant money for charter schools and get-out-the-vote campaigns and in 2006 got another $4 million in congressional earmarks for housing reform. The organization’s financial statements for 2008 show that it received another $5.1 million in federal grants, and holds assets worth $97.4 million. La Raza has received more than $30 million from the federal government since 1996. "The Council of La Raza arranged to have its voice included in congressional hearings by House and Senate leaders and garnered an extra $4 million in federal tax funds earmarked by an anonymous senator in 2007 while continuing to lobby for open borders, driver’s licenses for illegals, and amnesty leading to citizenship for all illegal immigrants in the country. …" THEY SAY USA SHOULD HAVE ONLY SECONDARY ALLEGIANCE ON LANGUAGE AND CUSTOMS "In the name of diversity, La Raza encourages Latinos to cling to the language and customs of their home country after becoming citizens of the U.S. "La Raza, through a network of 300 affiliates in 41 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, says that it ‘advocates on behalf of the entire Latino population regardless of immigration status.’ … "Sotomayor has also served on the board of directors of the Latino Justice/Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund which, like La Raza, also opposes enforcing immigration laws, securing the border and supports amnesty for those already in this country illegally." Source: Robert Engstrom (previously an award-winning reporter, photographer and editor with The Tombstone Epitaph and part owner, political reporter and photography editor for The Casas Adobes Courier in Tucson), Human Events, 6/15/09, p. 3 SONIA SAYS CONVICTED MURDERERS SHOULD HAVE VOTING RIGHTS WHILE IMPRISONED "Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor wants to give jailbirds the right to vote. It’s her opinion that the federal Voting Rights Act can be used to force states to allow voting by currently imprisoned felons. Ms. Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion in a 2006 felon-voting case should make senators extremely wary of confirming her for the high court." IS IT RACIST TO DENY VOTING PRIVILEGES TO KILLERS IN JAIL? "In Hayden v. Pataki, a number of inmates in New York state filed suit claiming that because blacks and Latinos make up a disproportionate share of the prison population, the state’s refusal to allow them ballot access amounts to an unlawful, race-based denial of their right to vote. Eight of 13 judges on the liberal-leaning Second Circuit dismissed their arguments, and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled likewise in a similar case." A DISTORTED ANALYSIS OF VOTING RIGHTS ACT "Yet, operating on a dubious and extremely broad reading of the Voting Rights Act, Ms. Sotomayor dissented from the decision. In a remarkably dismissive, four-paragraph opinion, she alleged that the ‘plain terms’ of the Voting Rights Act would allow such race-based claims to go forward. … "It’s as if she thinks black and Hispanic felons are convicted in order to deny them the vote, rather than that they are denied the vote as a result of being duly convicted. Her position ignores the fact that it is the convicts’ own actions, their crimes – not any state-based racial discrimination – that make those felons ineligible to vote. "As almost every state has done since the United States was founded, New York forbids currently incarcerated or paroled prisoners from voting. Some states go even farther by prohibiting some felons from voting even after they have served their sentences. New York’s law is not so stringent. It only applies to felons still under criminal sentences. It equally applies to all felons, black or white." SOTOMAYOR IS A RACIST "There is growing evidence that Judge Sotomayor believes some races are more equal than others. She said in a 2001 speech that she would expect a Latina judge to reach the right decision more often than would a white male judge. Her dissenting opinion in Hayden v. Pataki is another example of her taking racial grievance-mongering to absurd new depths. They are depths unbefitting a Supreme Court justice." Source: Editorial, The Washington Times, 5/29/09, p. A20 SONIA RULES FOR FISH AND FELONS "In a 2007 2nd Circuit decision, [President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Sonia] Sotomayor ruled the Clean Water Act required power companies that operate water-cooled power plants to use the ‘best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact’ to prevent fish and other aquatic life from being sucked into vents and killed. Cost was not to be a deciding factor. " ‘This case is about fish and other aquatic organisms,’ wrote Sotomayor. It was not about the little guys working at these plants or their jobs or businesses or staying in business. It was about the fish. Fish outweigh people on her scales of justice. "Sotomayor sided with environmentalists who had sued the EPA because the agency permitted the use of cost-benefit analysis in determining the ‘best technology available.’ Had her decision stood, power companies would have had to spend billions more to comply, passing these costs on to their customers. …" SHE’S AN EXPENSIVE JURIST "In that decision we see activist judges who are ideologically motivated on the courts telling businesses not to make sound business decisions but, as Sotomayor has said, make decisions based on policies dictated by the courts. "The Supreme Court disagreed, and on April 1 it overruled her decision 6-3. Judge Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority that best technology may in fact ‘describe the technology that most effectively produces some good.’ " ‘We conclude that the EPA permissibly relied on cost-benefit analysis in setting the national performance standards,’ Scalia wrote. ‘The Court of Appeals (and Judge Sotomayor),’ Scalia ruled, ‘was therefore in error.’ " SHE WOULD GIVE VOTING RIGHTS TO CONVICTED MURDERERS STILL IN PRISON "As if empathy for small aquatic organisms wasn’t bad enough, Sotomayor also has judicial compassion for those who have passing familiarity with our courts – that class of downtrodden people known as convicted felons. "In most jurisdictions, convicted felons cannot vote alongside those they have raped, robbed or assaulted. Sotomayor believes that under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 felons can and should be granted the right to vote. They are a discriminated against group being denied their civil rights." 5.3 MILLION MORE VOTES FOR OBAMA? "Hayden vs. Pataki was a case brought by one Joseph ‘Jazz’ Hayden, who stabbed a sanitation worker to death. Mr. Hayden felt that shouldn’t disqualify him from voting. In a dissenting opinion, Sotomayor agreed, arguing that Hayden and 5.3 million other convicted felons should be allowed to vote for those who write and enforce the laws they broke, even if their victims no longer can. "In her dissent, Sotomayor said Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act ‘by its unambiguous terms subjects felony disenfranchisement and all other voting qualifications to its coverage.’ Sotomayor believes that any voting qualification, such as bans on convicted murderers voting, is a violation of the Voting Rights Act. "We wonder if she also believes these convicted felons should have their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms restored? Be that as it may, we may soon have a judge who believes felons should vote and businessmen trying to stay in business should, well, go fish." Source: Editorial, Investor’s Business Daily, 5/29/09, p. A11 WILL SOTOMAYOR RELY ON INTERNATIONAL LAW? "The issue: One of the fiercest debates among legal scholars today is the degree to which it is proper for U.S. judges to cite foreign case law in making decisions. Conservatives, notably Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, tend to take the view that international agreements and laws should not apply, as they derive from different constitutional systems, while liberals, notably Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, tend to argue that a more ‘internationalist’ legal philosophy is needed. "Sotomayor’s record: The 2000 case Croll v. Croll involved the application of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Mrs. Croll had removed her child from Hong Kong to the United States in violation of a Hong Kong court’s joint custody order and Mr. Croll filed a petition under the Hague Convention seeking the child’s return. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where Sotomayor currently sits, sided with the mother, ruling that the convention did not give Mr. Croll the right to determine the child’s place of residence. "Sotomayor dissented, not only arguing for a more expansive interpretation of the treaty, but also referring to foreign case law to make her argument. ‘Sotomayor went through the foreign cases quite extensively and found that the view she was taking was consistent with what had been found by foreign courts. She paid a lot more attention to them than the majority had,’ said attorney and SCOTUSBlog co-founder Amy Howe. … "The issue: Liberals and conservatives also argue over the degree to which U.S. courts are bound by international treaties and/or rulings by international courts. The argument came to a head in the 2008 Supreme Court case Medellin v. Texas, in which a Mexican citizen appealed his U.S. death row conviction on the grounds that he was not informed by police of his right to contact the Mexican embassy under a preexisting treaty on consular relations. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) sided with Medellin, but the U.S. Supreme Court found that international treaties cannot be considered domestic law unless enacted by Congress and that the ICJ’s ruling was irrelevant. "Sotomayor's record: The justice’s dissent in the Croll case does seem to indicate that she sides with the court’s liberal wing in applying international law and treaty obligations to relevant cases. Additionally, her 2000 dissent in the case of Koehler v. Bank of Bermuda argues that citizens of Bermuda should be considered ‘subjects of a foreign state’ based on a ‘contemporary understanding of the relationship between the United Kingdom and its Overseas Territories.’ "In a 2007 forward to, The International Judge, a book on the role of judges in international law, Sotomayor took what seems to be a positive view toward the construction of international courts and legal institutions. ‘This book provides a nuanced roadmap for [judges in international courts], as well as for judges from established legal systems, while we all attempt to cobble together a culture of justice-seeking in a changed world,’ she wrote." Joshua Keating, www.npr.org, 5/29/09
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