Sotomayor Socialist

Ken AshfordSupreme CourtLeave a Comment

It's early yet, but I'll bet we're going to hear LOTS about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's 1976 Princeton yearbook photo.

Sotomayor_s_Socialist_Yearbook_Quote_-_Steven_Waldman_1243400748412 

Who is this "Norman Thomas" that she quotes?  From Wikipedia:

Norman Mattoon Thomas (1884—1968) was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.

Oh, hell's bells.

UPDATE:  And if you don't think the Sotomayor opposition isn't already being overly-silly, read this — and no, it's not from The Onion:

Sotomayor delivered the Judge Mario G. Olmos Memorial Lecture in 2001 at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. The Berkeley La Raza Law Journal published the lecture the following year.

Conservative critics have latched onto the speech as evidence that Sotomayor is an “activist judge,” who will rule on the basis of her personal beliefs instead of facts and law.

“Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see,” Sotomayor said. “My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.”

Sotomayor also claimed: “For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir — rice, beans and pork — that I have eaten at countless family holidays and special events.”

This has prompted some Republicans to muse privately about whether Sotomayor is suggesting that distinctive Puerto Rican cuisine such as patitas de cerdo con garbanzo — pigs’ feet with chickpeas — would somehow, in some small way influence her verdicts from the bench.

Oy.  And no, it's really not a joke:

I called Bolton earlier today and asked him whether this was for real–whether any conservatives were genuinely raising this issue. He confirmed, saying, "a source I spoke to said people were discussing that her [speech] had brought attention…she intimates that what she eats somehow helps her decide cases better."

Bolton said the source was drawing, "a deductive link," between Sotomayor's thoughts on Puerto Rican food and her other statements. And I guess the chain goes something like this: 1). Sotomayor implied that her Latina identity informs her jurisprudence, 2). She also implied that Puerto Rican cuisine is a crucial part of her Latina identity, 3). Ergo, her gastronomical proclivities will be a non-negligible factor for her when she's considering cases before the Supreme Court.

Double oy.