Sotomayor's Paper Trail

Among the rulings of designated Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor:

She upheld the rule prohibiting foreign family planning organizations receiving federal money from performing or supporting abortions.

She threw out claims by white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut that they were discriminated against they hadn't been promoted because black firemen had not qualified. This case goes to the Supreme Court next month.

She ruled in favor of prison inmates practicing the Santeria religion (a faith I only heard of today!) who sued wishing to have the right to wear religious beads in jail. This puts her in line with Samuel Alito, who as a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey, upheld the rights of Muslim policemen to keep their long beards. Sotomayor also struck down a ban on a Hannukah display in a public park in White Plains, New York.

She supported environmentalists in ruling that the Clean Water Act does not allow cost to be considered in deciding to how ensure clean water.

She sounds mainstream to me. She's a liberal, yes, but certainly not the second coming of William O. Douglas. Republican senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, no liberal, sees no major hurdles for Sotomayor. Nevertheless, I fear that some right-wing groups will try to smear her. I especially fear that morons like Sean Hannity will make Sotomayor look so radical, people will think she belonged to Omega 7.

In fact, abortion opponents are already at it. Despite her ruling supporting the right of the federal government to have a "gag rule" on abortion - a position also favored by David Souter - the anti-abortion group Americans United For Life called her "a radical pick that divides America." Thus once again, when it comes to intelligent debate on public issues and on the role of the judiciary, America is the remedial student in a classroom full of valedictorians.