Law and Courts

On Monday morning, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter, was meeting with the White House team helping her with her confirmation.

White House still photographers were ushered in to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to take shots of Sotomayor and her team the day before the judge is set to begin individual interviews with senators on Capitol Hill.

-Sam Youngman

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) said a filibuster of Judge Sonia Sotomayor would probably be unlikely, adding to the list of Senate Republicans showing a disinclination to block the Supreme Court nomination.

Hutchison said that a filibuster probably wouldn't be needed unless an exceptional circumstance arose over the next few months.

"I don't think the need for filibuster will be there unless we've had a chance to do that in an expeditious way," Hutchison said on CNN's "State of the Union" about the Senate's review of the president's pick to join the high court.

"I think we need to look at the record fully, and I think we ought to do that in an expeditious way," the Texas lawmaker said, echoing a number of other GOP lawmakers' careful remarks about the nomination.

President Obama defended his choice of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to join the Supreme Court, laying out her background and defending her qualifications in the weekly radio address.

Watch the video of the address below:

Judge Sonia Sotomayor's word choice in a speech talking about the role of her background in making decisions was "poor," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday.

Still, Gibbs defended the Supreme Court nominee from conservative attacks calling her racist, in particular an attack from Rush Limbaugh likening her to former KKK member David Duke.

"Look, I have not talked specifically with her about this, but I think that she'd say that her word choice in 2001 was poor," Gibbs told reporters, "that she was simply making the point that personal experiences are relevant to the process of judging."

Still, Gibbs went after two of his favorite targets in Limbaugh and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"I don't think you have to be the nominee to find what was said today offensive," Gibbs said. "And I think maybe the best example of that is to look at any number of conservative and Republican leaders who over the past 24 hours have specifically addressed the comments of people like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh."

Sonia Sotomayor became a prosecutor despite a "tremendous amount of pressure" from her classmates not to do so, the Supreme Court nominee said in an interview early in her career.

In a 1983 NY Times article (payment required) about the difficult career of Assistant District Attorneys, Sotomayor discusses doubts both she and her peers had about the profession she'd embarked on.

"'There was a tremendous amount of pressure from my community, from the third-world community, at Yale,'' the 29-year old recalled. ''They could not understand why I was taking this job. I'm not sure I've ever resolved that problem."

Sotomayor said that working as a D.A. exposed her to an often sad and tragic world of criminal justice.

''What I am finding, both statistically and emotionally,'' she continues, ''is that the worst victims of crimes are not general society--i.e., white folks--but minorities themselves. The violence, the sorrow are perpetrated by minorities on minorities.''

Sotomayor said it was most difficult to prosecute minor crimes like shoplifting and prostitution. Those crimes, she said, "could be the product of the environment and of poverty."

Felonies, on the other hand, presented less moral difficulties.

''Once I started doing felonies, it became less hard," she said. "No matter how liberal I am, I'm still outraged by crimes of violence. Regardless of whether I can sympathize with the causes that lead these individuals to do these crimes, the effects are outrageous.''

A majority of Americans approve of President Obama's choice to nomiante Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, a new Quinnipiac poll finds.

54% approve of Sotomayor, 24% disapprove, and 22% have no opinion so far.

As expected, there's a deep partisan split. 81% of Democrats approve of Sotomayor, with just 3% disapproving. That compares to a 50%-26% favorable margin among independents. Just 26% of Republicans support Sotomayor.

More from Quinnipiac:

The fact that Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice is a "very important factor" in President Obama's decision to nominate her, 34 percent of American voters say, with 36 percent calling it "somewhat important." A total of 26 percent call it "not too important" or "not important at all."

A nominee's legal qualifications are more important than achieving diversity on the Supreme Court, American voters say 60 - 8 percent, while 29 percent say both factors are equally important.

In a Gallup poll released yesterday, 47% of respondents said the choice of Sotoamyor was either "excellent" or "good."

Lost in the hoopla over NRSC Chairman John Cornyn's (R-Texas) criticism of Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh is that fact the one of these men is set to help him raise lots of money.

Speaking on NPR on Thursday, Cornyn called Gingrich's and Limbaugh's labeling of Sotomayor as racist "terrible" and diminished them by noting that they aren't "elected Republican officials."

But on June 8, Gingrich is the headliner for one of the biggest GOP fundraisers of the election cycle, where the NRSC and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) will raise millions.

At the least, it could lead to some awkward moments. But for now, it doesn't sound like Gingrich has hard feelings.

He's out of the country, but his spokesman, Rick Tyler, noted that Gingrich's comments--which came from his Twitter feed--are only part of a much larger conversation.

"A lot of people are commenting on 140 characters (Twitter's character limit), but I think there will be a lot more to be said on the topic" of Sotomayor, Tyler said.

To recap, here's a transcript of Cornyn's comments on Gingrich:

Q: We've heard Rush Limbaugh and the former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calling Sonia Sotomayor a racist, saying she should withdraw. What do you make of the rhetoric that's tumbling out these days?

A: I think it's terrible. This is not the kind of tone that any of us want to set when it comes to performing our constitutional responsibilities of advice and consent.

Q: Do you worry that language like that harms the discussion? Harms your party's image-- especially among Hispanics, where the Republican Party's been losing ground lately?

A: Neither one of these men are elected Republican officials. I just don't think it's appropriate. I certainly don't endorse it. I think it's wrong.

-Aaron Blake

Add Michael Steele to the list of Republicans getting nervous about the heated rhetoric against Sotomayor.

Guest hosting Bill Bennett's radio show this morning, Steele told conservatives to back off the racial aspect of Sotomayor's nomination:

"I'm excited that a Hispanic woman is in this position," Steele said. He added that instead of "slammin' and rammin'" on Sotomayor, Republicans should "acknowledge" the "historic aspect" of the pick and make a "cogent, articulate argument" against her for purely substantive reasons.

Steele warned that because of the attacks, "we get painted as a party that's against the first Hispanic woman" picked for the Supreme Court.

"We don't need to play this the way the Democrats have played it in the past," Steele said, adding that Republicans can't do this because they don't have the "liberal media" on their side, the way Dems did. Said Steele: "MSNBC will rip everything we have to say up into shreds."

Judge Sonia Sotomayor's Senate guide through her confirmation hearings said Thursday evening that her heritage should very much be part of her decision-making process as a judge.

"Rule of law has to come first, obviously," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told National Public Radio (NPR) in an interview. "No matter what your personal background, if you're a judge, your job is to apply the rule of law."

But Schumer said that Sotomayor's background, namely her Hispanic heritage, should be part of her judicial arsenal, as Sotomayor herself had seemed to claim in the past.

"Obviously, within that context, our backgrounds influence us. You can't avoid it if you're a human being," he explained. "I don't think any American wants nine people on the Supreme Court, all of whom have ice water in their veins."

Sotomayor had come under fire from some conservative Republicans who consider the role of heritage and background in Sotomayor's decision-making "racist."

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) became the first senator Thursday to go on the record to say that he would vote against Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court.

While many Republicans have opted to keep their powder dry, issuing statements about carefully reviewing President Obama's pick to join the high court, Roberts flatly stated he wouldn't support Sotomayor.

"I do not plan to vote for her," Roberts told radio host Chris Stigall on KCMO Talk Radio 710 this morning.

"I voted no in 1998. I did not feel she was appropriate on the appeals court," Roberts said. "Since that time, she has made statements on the role of the appeals court I think is improper and incorrect."

Other lawmakers have expressed similar complaints about Sotomayor, but no others have yet come out to state that they'll vote against her.