 Judge Sonia Sotomayer
One of Us for the Supreme Court
By Robert Waddell, May 31, 2009
This past Tuesday, May 26, President Obama announced his recommendation of Judge Sonia Sotomayer to the United States Supreme Court sending shock waves through the Latino community.
To be sure, Appellate court Judge Sotomayer has already been confirmed by the senate twice after being courted by President George W. Bush and now President Obama. Judge Sotomayer reflects the triumph of the American Dream and her story is a courageous and inspiring one: She grew up in the Projects of the South Bronx and was diagnosed with diabetes at an early age. Her mother had to work two jobs after Sotomayer’s father died. She attended Princeton and Yale, working as a district attorney then she became a federal court judge.
What is most inspiring is that Judge Sotomayer is one of us.
She validates all people of color from the projects and those who are from the hood with untapped and overwhelming potential. At the same time, she invalidates the negative and false assumptions of Puerto Ricans imposed on us by the majority culture and those false ideas we whip ourselves with every day.
In her speech this past Tuesday, Judge Sotomayer said that she was filled with gratitude and said that she was half the woman her mother Selina Sotomayer is today.
Try to imagine the toughness of this woman: she went to 2 Ivy League colleges, worked at a law firm, the district attorney’s office, grilled by the senate twice and was a federal court judge. This is no shrinking violent. Esta es una mujer Boricua from the Bronx! Tough to the core.
Judge Sotomayer’s critics have already begun to sharpen the long knives calling her a judicial activist. I only point to the Right wing political appointees of the Supreme Court who went hunting with Vice-President Dick Cheney, decided against a recount in Gore V. Bush deciding a presidential election and all of the pro-business, pro-government decisions that have all obviously been judicial activism of a different sort.
No matter how dark those robes are, no justice, ever, I believe completely covers their humanity. And humanity and integrity is something President Obama has brought back to the White House and the federal government.
Justice Sotomayer’s job will be to interpret the Constitution as it applies to the “endless challenges in the complexity of the law,” she said on Tuesday.
Some of her decisions have already been brought into question like siding with a Connecticut town and its policy of not hiring enough minorities in the fire department and the case where federal funds could be withheld to clinics in Latin America that conducted abortions.
 These decisions show that she threads to the middle of issues but issues are not the case. How will she look at issues of Privacy, the First Amendment, the death penalty, immigration issues, anti-trust suits and the myriad of cases coming before the high court? With fairness, I’m sure.
Far worse criticism has come from the right.
But, in defense of his nominee, the President said, “"But I am confident that these efforts will fail…because Judge Sotomayor's 17-year record on the bench — hundreds of judicial decisions that every American can read for him or herself — speak far louder than any attack; her record makes clear that she is fair, unbiased and dedicated to the rule of law.”
Just being a Puerto Rican woman doesn’t cut it but if one were to look at Judge Sotomayer’s record as an attorney and a judge, forget about race and gender, she’s the best person for the job.
Emotionally we get caught up with the fact that she looks like one of us and comes from where some of us have come from. No one should be hired for a job based on the color of their skin or if they’re a man or a woman.
However, Judge Sotomayer’s credentials speak for themselves. The record on being fair, bringing humanity to decisions and a keen mind’s interpretation of the law is good enough for me, and should be good enough for the senate. Justice Sotomayer would bring her professional and personal experience to the Supreme Court, like the White House and the rest of the government has received from the Obama administration. The United States and its government have been tarnished by the corroding decadence of George W. Bush’s presidency.
So much of what President Obama has done so far is to fix the economy, bring trust back to the White House and clean up his predecessor’s mess. What George W. Bush did to the nation and the Constitution, Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans.
I thought I was proud when President Obama appointed former Bronx borough President Adolfo Carrion, Jr. to Urban Czar. After Sotomayer’s nomination, I wish I could go out and vote for Obama all over again.
“The problem of democracy…,” Howard Zinn wrote in “A People’s History of the Untied States, “…lay deeper, beyond the Constitution, in the division of society into rich and poor. For if some people had great wealth and great influence; if they had the land, the money, the newspapers, the church, the educational system---how could voting, however broad, cut into such power?”
The first steps to the solution go like this:
First, we elect a positive politician and community organizer to President.
Second, as a population, we get off our lazy over fed asses and ipod induced sleep and work hard, tighten our belts, volunteer.
Third, have some one on the Supreme Court who understands the rule of law and the complexities of the Constitution. It doesn’t help, ultimately, that Sonia Sotomayer is Puerto Rican or looks like us and is one of us but it does fill us with so much pride, so much hope for everyone who grew up in the South Bronx and in public housing projects with a hard working single parent. It does for me.
Justice Sonia Sotomayer is not the answer but she’s a damn good start. When I march in the Puerto Rican Day Parade this year, this is the music I’ll be stamping my feet to, the prayer, the wish, the Plena of the People.
This column was developed through the Education Beat Writing Fellowship at the New York Community Alliance. |
