Sonia Sotomayor confirmed as first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

That's Justice Sotomayor to you!

Congratulations to Associate Justice Sotomayor.

Sonia Sotomayor won confirmation Thursday as the nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice in a historical vote that capped a summer-long debate marred by ethnic politics. She'll be sworn in Saturday as the court's 111th justice.

The Senate vote was 68-31 to confirm Sotomayor, including all Democrats (except Sen. Kennedy who is ill) and the the Senate's two independents.

Nine Republicans joined majority Democrats including George Voinovich, Kit Bond, Mel Martinez, Lamar Alexander, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Judd Gregg and Richard Lugar (four of the six retiring Republican senators in 2010).

Arizona's twin embarrassments voted not to confirm. This was to be expected from a right-wing nut like Jon Kyl. But for John McCain, this was the first time in his Senate career that he voted not to confirm a Supreme Court Justice. For McCain, his vote represents a short-term political calculation to try to insulate himself from his GOP primary challenger, anti-immigrant Minuteman Chris Simcox, by pandering to the GOP's right-wing base.

UPDATE: Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) was a guest on 'The Ed Show' for Thursday, August 6 and offered this insight:

O'DONNELL: Senator Menendez, before you go, I can't let you leave without asking you what it felt like to vote for and witness the confirmation of the first Hispanic justice on the United States Supreme Court? And then, secondly, how you think the politics for this play out for Republicans in the next election, the way they lined up against her in such big numbers?

MENENDEZ: Well, look, for me, it was a personal privilege. Sonia Sotomayor and I were born in the same year, we grew up on different sides of the Hudson River, her in a public housing project, I in a tenement. If you told me then that I would be one of 100 United States senators voting on the confirmation of her for a Supreme Court justice, we probably would have told you neither one of those things were likely. But it's the promise of America fulfilled and it's a promise we fight every day to keep a reality for future generations of Americans.

As to my Republican colleagues, you know, it's hard to tell the Hispanic community that when you have a woman who was Phi Beta Kappa at Princeton, on the "Yale Law Review," became a tough prosecutor in New York City, went on to get appointed by a Republican president to the district court-of the federal district court, and then by a Democratic president, passed by Congresses, both Democrats and Republicans at the time, and you have a great history of precedent, commitment to precedent, the Constitution and the rule of law, and you still say to a Latina like that, I can't vote for you, it sends a message to the community that, no matter how hard we try, no matter how hard we work, no matter how many barriers we break in pursuit of excellence, that somehow you still find us lacking.

I think that's a problem for Republicans.

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4 thoughts on “Sonia Sotomayor confirmed as first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice”

  1. I provided you with the official explanation. I don’t make the rules. If you are not satisfied with the explanation, too bad. Whine about it somewhere else.

  2. SO those whose ancestors came from the Iberian Peninsula aren’t hispanic because it was too long ago?

    Why are there several members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who share the same or similar roots as Cardozo? Should they be removed from the Caucus, since they aren’t ‘real’ Hispanics?

  3. While your purpose is to be an asshole, I will answer your question:

    Cardozo-biographer Kaufman questioned the usage of the term “Hispanic” in the justice’s lifetime, stating: “Well, I think he regarded himself as a Sephardic Jew whose ancestors came from the Iberian Peninsula. It has also been asserted that Cardozo himself “confessed in 1937 that his family preserved neither the Spanish language nor Iberian cultural traditions”. Both the National Association of Latino Elected Officials and the Hispanic National Bar Association consider Sonia Sotomayor to be the first unequivocally Hispanic justice.

  4. Is there any reason Justice Cardoza does not receive the distinction of being the first hispanic Justice, or was he not brown enough for you?

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