No free ride for court nominees

Inter Lake editorial

President Obama crafted a politically astute pick for the Supreme Court when he named Sonia Sotomayor as his choice to replace Justice David Souter in the court's next term.

First of all, and most obviously, her background as a Hispanic woman makes it difficult for the Republican Party to be too vociferous in opposition to her nomination - after all, Latino voters could well hold the future of the country in their hands as the nation's demographics shift dramatically in coming years.

Perhaps more importantly, Sotomayor meets anyone's standards for a successful life. It would be hard for Republicans to come down to hard on her without looking like they were somehow against the American dream.

Rising up from her early life in a Bronx housing project, Sotomayor eventually graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, then became an editor of the Yale Law Journal at Yale Law School. Following a career as a prosecutor and corporate litigator, she was appointed as a federal judge by the first President Bush in 1992, and most recently has served as a member of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after being appointed by President Clinton.

So no one can doubt that Sotomayor meets the basic test for a Supreme Court justice - she is educated, experienced and tested in the law.

But that does not mean the U.S. Senate does not have a serious role to play in fulfilling its constitutional duty of advising the president about his pick and determining whether to consent to it. And it behooves members of both parties to do just that, and to have a legitimate discussion of judicial temperament, judicial philosophy and judicial history, regardless of the nominee's biography and personal accomplishments.

There will no doubt be a suggestion from Democrats that President Obama should be able to appoint whoever he wants to the Supreme Court, but that of course misses the point of Senate involvement. Presumably, there was a reason why our nation's founders did not allow the president to just appoint whoever he wanted without review, and this review process should permit individual senators to vote their conscience on whether or not Judge Sotomayor will serve the nation well as a Supreme Court justice.

Her confirmation is almost certain, barring some major explosion, but also certain is that whoever is confirmed as a justice of the Supreme Court has tremendous, nearly unchecked, power. Senators should go over her record now with a fine-toothed comb and decide for themselves whether or not her rulings and reasoning make sense. If they do, then vote for her. If they don't, vote against.

Because Judge Sotomayor apparently is a mainstream liberal, and so is most of the Senate, we expect her to be approved on that basis. Judicial decisions should not be based on political considerations, but judicial confirmations almost invariably are.