[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 15858-15860]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          SOTOMAYOR NOMINATION

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank Senator Menendez and Senator 
Schumer for their outstanding statements to the Senate today. As I 
review Judge Sotomayor's record in preparation for her confirmation 
hearing on July 13, I am struck by her extraordinary career and how she 
has excelled at everything she has done. I know how proud her mother 
Celina is of her accomplishments. I was delighted to hear Laura Bush, 
the former First Lady, say recently that she, too, is ``proud'' that

[[Page 15859]]

President Obama nominated a woman to serve on our Supreme Court. I 
recall that Justice Ginsburg said she was ``cheered'' by the 
announcement and that she is glad that she will no longer be ``the lone 
woman on the Court.'' I contrast this reaction to President Bush's 
naming of Justice O'Connor's successor a few years ago when Justice 
O'Connor conceded her disappointment ``to see the percentage of women 
on [the Supreme Court] drop by 50 percent.'' Are these women biased, or 
prejudiced, or being discriminatory? Of course not. I hope that all 
Americans are encouraged by the nomination of Judge Sotomayor and join 
together to celebrate what it says about America being a land of 
opportunity for all.
  A member of just the third class at Princeton in which women were 
included, Judge Sotomayor worked hard and graduated summa cum laude, 
Phi Beta Kappa, and shared the M. Taylor Senior Pyne Prize for 
scholastic excellence and service to the university. Think about that. 
She was a young woman who worked hard, including during the summers, to 
make up for lessons she had not received growing up in a South Bronx 
tenement. That is why she read children's books and classics, and 
arranged for tutoring to improve her writing. She went on to excel at 
Yale Law School, where she was an active member of the law school 
community, served as an editor of the prestigious Yale Law Journal, and 
as the managing editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order 
working on two journals during her 3 years of law school. She was also 
a semifinalist in the Barrister's Union mock trial competition at the 
law school. Now, some Republican Senators have made fun of her 
achievements and some seek to belittle them. They question how she 
could be an editor without providing a major article that she edited. I 
know from my experience that members of student journals do not all 
edit major articles. It is an achievement to be affiliated with the 
Yale Law Journal in any capacity. They act as if she made this up. If 
this really is a major concern, and they wish to ask her about it at 
her confirmation hearing, they can. I have never known Sonia Sotomayor 
to be one who padded her resume. Frankly, she does not need to. Her 
achievements are extraordinary and impressive.
  She is the first nominee to the Supreme Court in 100 years to have 
been nominated to three Federal judicial positions by three different 
Presidents. Indeed, it was President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, 
who nominated and then appointed her with the consent of the Senate to 
be a Federal district court judge. She has the most Federal court 
experience after 17 years of any nominee to the Supreme Court in 100 
years. She is the first nominee in more than 50 years to have served as 
a Federal trial judge and a Federal appellate judge at the time of her 
nomination to the Supreme Court. She will be the only member of the 
Supreme Court to have served as a trial judge. She will be one of only 
two members of the Supreme Court to have served as a prosecutor.
  I remember well when she was nominated to the United States Court of 
Appeals for the Second Circuit by President Clinton, and when an 
anonymous Republican hold stalled her appointment for months. Finally, 
in June 1998, a column in The Wall Street Journal confirmed that the 
Republican obstruction was because they feared that President Clinton 
would nominate her to fill a Supreme Court vacancy, if one were to 
arise. After that Supreme Court term ended without a vacancy, we were 
finally able to vote on her nomination and she was confirmed 
overwhelmingly. Not one word was spoken on the Senate floor and not one 
word was inserted into the Congressional Record by those who had 
opposed her to explain their opposition or to justify or excuse the 
shabby treatment her nomination had received.
  It is apparent that some Republicans are responding to the demands of 
conservative pressure groups to oppose her confirmation by doing just 
that. The truth is that they were prepared to oppose any nomination 
that President Obama made. Just today, a number of Republican Senators 
have come to the Senate floor to speak against President Obama's 
nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. The Senate 
Republican leader, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, 
and the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee have all 
taken a turn.
  My initial reaction to their effort is to note that they have doubly 
demonstrated why a hearing should not be delayed. In fairness, no one 
should seek to delay her opportunity to respond to their questions and 
concerns and to answer their charges. As I said when I set the hearing 
date after consulting with Senator Sessions, I wanted it to be fair and 
adequate--fair to the nominee and adequate to allow Senators to 
prepare. To be fair to her, we need to give her the earliest possible 
opportunity to answer. As for preparedness, those Republican critics 
were prepared to air their grievances and concerns and to discuss her 
record and her cases 3 weeks before the scheduled date of the hearing. 
What they clearly demonstrated today is that they are prepared to 
proceed with the July 13 hearing.
  I do not agree with their characterization of her distinguished 
record on the Federal bench, or with their mischaracterization of her 
manner of judging. Judge Sotomayor's approach to the law should be 
clear to all after a 17-year record of fairly applying the law on the 
Federal bench. I remind them that when I asked Judge Sotomayor about 
her approach to judging she told me that, of course, one's life 
experience shapes who you are, but she went on to say this: 
``Ultimately and completely''--and she used those words--as a judge you 
follow the law. There is not one law for one race or another. There is 
not one law for one color or another. There is not one law for rich and 
a different one for poor. There is only one law. She said ultimately 
and completely, a judge has to follow the law no matter what his or her 
upbringing has been. That is the kind of fair and impartial judging 
that the American people expect. That is respect for the rule of law. 
That is the kind of judge she has been.
  For all the talk we have heard for years about judicial modesty and 
judicial restraint from nominees at their confirmation hearings, we 
have seen a Supreme Court these last four years that has been anything 
but modest and restrained. One need look no further than the Lilly 
Ledbetter and Diana Levine cases, or the Gross case from last week, to 
understand how just one vote can determine the Court's decision and 
impact the lives and freedoms of countless Americans.
  The question we should be asking as we consider Judge Sotomayor's 
nomination is whether she will act in the mold of these conservative 
activists who have second-guessed Congress and undercut laws meant to 
protect Americans from discrimination in their jobs and in voting, laws 
meant to protect the access of Americans to health care and education, 
and laws meant to protect the privacy of all Americans from an 
overreaching government. We should be asking whether she will be the 
kind of Justice who understands the real world impact of her decisions.
  I know Judge Sotomayor is a restrained and thoughtful judge. She 
understands the role of a judge. Her record is one of restraint. In 
fact, the cases her critics chose to highlight are cases in which she 
showed restraint and followed the law. I hope that she is also a judge 
who understands that the courthouse doors must be as open to ordinary 
Americans as they are to government and big corporations.
  I wish Republican Senators would pay less attention to the agitating 
from the far right, take a less selective view of a handful of Judge 
Sotomayor's cases to paint her--inaccurately--as an activist and, 
instead, consider her record fairly. She has been a judge that Kenneth 
Starr has endorsed. The other judges on the Second Circuit think the 
world of her, and have great respect for her judgment and judging. She 
is a nominee in which all Americans can take pride and have confidence. 
She has been a judge for all Americans and will be a Justice for all 
Americans.
  I am sorry that some critics are seeking to caricature Judge 
Sotomayor and

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mischaracterize her involvement with respectable mainstream civil 
rights organizations. Judge Sotomayor was a member of board of 
directors of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, PRLDEF, 
now known as LatinoJustice PRLDEF, from 1980 until her resignation in 
1992. Today, Republican critics chose to malign PRLDEF. This is a 
respected organization that was founded in the early 1970s with the 
support of Senator Jacob Javits, former Attorney General Nicholas 
Katzenbach, former New York Attorney General Robert Abrams, and 
legendary New York County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who was 
Judge Sotomayor's boss when she worked in his office as a prosecutor 
after graduating from Yale Law School.
  It was modeled on the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Its 
mission is to develop a more equitable society by creating 
opportunities for Latinos in areas where they are traditionally 
underrepresented. It seeks to ensure that Latinos have the legal 
resources necessary to fully engage in civic life. Financial support 
for PRLDEF comes from widely regarded foundations like Ford and 
Carnegie, and corporate contributions from businesses like Time Warner. 
These foundations and corporations are not radical. Neither is PRLDEF.
  Other past directors of PRLDEF include the honorable Jose Cabranes of 
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, former Congressman 
Herman Badillo, now a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and 
former Governor of New York Hugh Carey. Jack John Olivero, a former 
regional director of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and 
deputy director of its Washington office was PRLDEF's fourth president 
and general counsel. The list goes on and on of distinguished lawyers 
who have served in leadership capacities at PRLDEF.
  One of PRLDEF's core missions is increasing diversity in the legal 
profession. To that end, PRLDEF mentors youth from all backgrounds, 
assisting them in completing their law school applications, mentoring 
them throughout law school, and supporting them during their years as 
young lawyers. Thousands of attorneys, including prominent civic, 
government, and corporate leaders, credit PRLDEF for helping them 
realize their dreams of becoming lawyers.
  We all know about this part of Sonia Sotomayor's life because she 
disclosed her board membership and status as an officer in response to 
the Judiciary Committee's questionnaire. We know about it because Judge 
Sotomayor not only reviewed her own records to provide documents from 
her time at PRLDEF, but she also went above and beyond what the 
bipartisan questionnaire called for and asked that PRLDEF conduct its 
own search of its records. Judge Sotomayor has now provided the 
committee with additional documents from this search related to her 
work for PRLDEF. The record before us is public and it is transparent. 
We already have a more complete picture of Judge Sotomayor's record 
than we ever had of the records of John Roberts or Samuel Alito.
  The committee did not receive 15,000 pages of documents related to 
key parts of Chief Justice Roberts' career in executive branch until 
the eve of the hearings, and many of them were heavily redacted. The 
Bush administration refused to meet or even discuss the Democrats' 
narrow request for specific memoranda relating to 16 key cases on which 
John Roberts worked while he was the principal deputy to Solicitor 
General Kenneth Starr in the administration of President George H.W. 
Bush. As a result, the committee had little knowledge of highly 
relevant parts of John Roberts's work as a political appointee in the 
office of ``the people's lawyer''--the Solicitor General. Because John 
Roberts had fewer than 3 years on the bench at the time of his 
nomination, these documents would have provided a crucial window into 
his qualifications. But we never received them.
  During the committee's consideration of the Alito nomination, we 
requested documents from Samuel Alito's 6 years in the Department of 
Justice. However, the Bush administration just days before his hearing 
refused to produce 45 of the 50 opinions Sam Alito had written or 
supervised while in the Office of Legal Counsel. The administration 
also refused to provide most of the documents he wrote while in the 
Solicitor General's Office. Indeed, in refusing our request for these 
documents, the Department of Justice wrote:

       Judge Alito has sat on the federal appellate bench for more 
     than 15 years, and his decisions in that capacity represent 
     the best evidence of his judicial philosophy and of the 
     manner in which he approaches judicial decision-making.

  I do not recall a single Republican saying that we did not have a 
complete record to consider those nominations of President Bush to the 
Supreme Court even though there were significant gaps in the records. 
We should not apply a double standard to the nomination of Sonia 
Sotomayor.
  We have Judge Sotomayor's record from the Federal bench. That is a 
public record that we had even before she was designated by the 
President. Judge Sotomayor's mainstream record of judicial restraint 
and modesty is the best indication of her judicial philosophy. We do 
not have to imagine what kind of a judge she will be because we see 
what kind of a judge she has been.
  I thank Judge Sotomayor for her quick and complete answers to the 
committee's questionnaire, and for going above and beyond what is 
required. My review of Judge Sotomayor's record has only bolstered the 
strong impression she has made over the past several years. She is 
extraordinarily qualified to serve on the Nation's highest court. She 
will bring to the Supreme Court more than just her first-rate legal 
mind and impeccable credentials. Hers is a distinctly American story. 
Whether you are from the South Bronx, the south side of Chicago or 
South Burlington, the American Dream inspires all of us, and her life 
story is the American dream.
  I am confident that when elevated to the highest court in the land 
Judge Sotomayor will continue to live up to Justice Marshall's 
description of the work of the judge. Justice Marshall said:

       We whose profession it is to ensure that the game is played 
     according to the rules, have an overriding professional 
     responsibility of ensuring that the game itself is fair for 
     all. Our citizenry expect a system of justice that not only 
     lives up to the letter of the Constitution, but one that also 
     abides by its spirit. They deserve the best efforts of all of 
     us towards meeting that end. In our day-to-day work we must 
     continue to realize that we are dealing with individuals not 
     statistics.

  It is a pretty awesome responsibility when a Justice of the Supreme 
Court is nominated. Most Justices will serve long after the President 
who nominated them is gone, long after most of the Senators who vote on 
that nominee are gone. We have 300 million Americans. There are only 
101 Americans who get a direct say in who is going to be on the Supreme 
Court. First and foremost, the President of the United States, when he 
makes the nomination to the Supreme Court, and then the 100 Senators 
who either vote yes or vote no. So let's stop delegating our work to 
special interest groups. Let's delegate our work to ourselves. Let's do 
what we are paid to do. Let's do what we have been elected to do.
  This is a historic nomination. It should unite the American people 
and unite the 100 of us in the Senate who will act on their behalf. It 
is a nomination that keeps faith with the words engraved in Vermont 
marble over the entrance of the Supreme Court: ``Equal Justice Under 
Law.''
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kaufman). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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