Sonia Sotomayor = SCOTUS

From Judgepedia:

Sotomayor, who grew up in a public housing project in the Bronx, is of Puerto Rican descent. Her father was a manual laborer who did not attend high school and who died when Sotomayor was nine years old, a year after she was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. Her mother, a nurse, supported Sotomayor's educational goals. Sotomayor, who is divorced, has no children.[11]

Sotomayor did her undergraduate work at Princeton, graduating summa cum laude in 1976, and then went on to law school at Yale Law, where she was awarded her Juris Doctor degree in 1979. She then began her legal career working from 1979-1984 as an assistant District Attorney with the District Attorney's Office of New York County.

On the recommendation of U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moniyhan, Sotomayor was nominated by President George H.W. Bush on November 27, 1991, to a seat on the Southern District of New York (district appeals court).

She is currently a federal appeals judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit based in New York City. Again on the recommendation of U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moniyhan, she was nominated to this position by Bill Clinton on June 25, 1997

Why Sotomayor?

The fact that she is a woman of Hispanic descent is thought by some to make her an appealing choice for ethic communities and women.

The belief that she will be perceived as a centrist in her judicial philosophy. Mark Tushnet, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School says, "Because Sotomayor has a reputation for staying behind the scenes and sits on a federal bench known for its centrism, it's likely that she would be able to garner a two-thirds majority in the Senate, even if the Democrats only control an estimated 55 or so seats. Plus there's an insurance measure if the nomination gets too politicized publicly."[5]

It is thought that it might be tactically difficult for Republicans to oppose a Sotomayor nomination because she was originally appointed to the federal bench by Republican George H.W. Bush. "If you're a Democratic strategist, you can gin up ads that say, 'She was good enough for George H. W. Bush. Why isn't she good enough for (Senate Minority Leader) Mitch McConnell?"[5]

Supporters include New York's US Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillbrand who, on April 9, 2009, wrote a letter to President Barack Obama urging that either Sotomayor or Ken Salazar be the first Latino nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States.[20]

Opposition:

Conservatives may oppose Sotomayor's nomination by characterizing her as having a controversial judicial philosophy that favors judicial activism.

Jeffrey Rosen of The New Republic interviewed people he described as "a range of people who have worked with her" that he describes as primarily "former law clerks for other judges on the Second Circuit or former federal prosecutors in New York" and Democrats who all "want President Obama to appoint a judicial star of the highest intellectual caliber who has the potential to change the direction of the court." Based on these interviews, Rosen published a piece on May 4, 2009 where he maintains that these interviewees "expressed questions about [Sotomayor's] temperament, her judicial craftsmanship, and most of all, her ability to provide an intellectual counterweight to the conservative justices, as well as a clear liberal alternative."[11]

With regard to the issue of judicial temperament, Rosen says that the people he interviewed "consistently" were of the mind that Sotomayor is "not that smart" and is "kind of a bully on the bench." Sotomayor's "command of technical legal details" was also raised as a point of concern. [11]

Glenn Greenwald responds:

. . . the National Review [and other conservatives] . . . declare her to be "dumb and obnoxious" . . . [and assert that she] doesn't deserve her achievements -- based on the fact that she's Puerto Rican and female . . .

My perception of Sotomayor is almost the exact opposite of the picture painted by Rosen. I had a generally low opinion of the intellect of most judges -- it's one of the things I disliked most about the practice of law -- but I found her to be extremely perceptive, smart, shrewd and intellectually insightful. The image that has been instantaneously created of her as some sort of doltish mediocrity, based on nothing but Rosen's water-cooler chatter, is, at least to me, totally unrecognizable. Of the countless federal judges with whom I had substantive interaction over more than ten years of litigation, I would place her in the top tier when it comes to intellect. My impressions are very much in line with the author of this assessment of Sotomayor, who had much more extensive interaction with her and -- unlike Rosen's chatterers -- has the courage to attach his name to his statements.

It's certainly true that she was very assertive and aggressive -- at times unpleasantly so -- in how she presided over her courtroom. [He goes on to say that this type of behavior is extremely common among judges.]

. . . it's very hard in this case to avoid the impression that behavior that seems "authoritative" and "appropriate" when coming from familiar authority figures (such as all the white males on the bench Stuart Taylor hails as "brilliant") is immediately transformed into "domineering" and "egotistical" when coming from a woman who still speaks with a mild though discernible Bronx/Puerto Rican accent. The anonymous personality smears passed on by Rosen seem to say far more about Rosen's sources (and Rosen) than about Sotomayor. Salon's Rebecca Traister and The American Prospect's Adam Serwer both expertly highlight what are, in this case, the overt gender and ethnic overtones to the attacks on her.