“Not Our First Choice”: How Sotomayor Landed on the Bench

Deborah O'Malley / June 05, 2009

A constant refrain among defenders of Judge Sonia Sotomayor is that she is actually moderate. Ignore her insensitive statements suggesting that there could be physiological differences between ethnicities which contribute to “differences in logic and reasoning.” Ignore her lightly mocking the idea that judges don’t “make law.” Ignore her dismissing the suggestion that judges can be impartial in most cases, and suggesting that it is a disservice to the country for them to ignore biases. And certainly ignore her opinions: upholding discrimination against a white, learning disabled firefighter; declaring not only that the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to the states, but that weapons laws don’t even implicate fundamental rights; and finding it unlawful for states to restrict the ability of felons—even double murders currently in prison—to vote. No, ignore all of those things, she really is moderate. (more…)