Opinion: Sotomayor hearings: Leahy speaks to nomination’s place in history

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Earlier in the day, when the hearing began, Leahy invited Judge Sotomayor to introduce “whomever you like” and then said she could add anyone else to the official transcript later.

Sotomayor first introduced her brother, Juan, then her mother, Celina. “Next to her is my favorite husband of my mom,” she added, as she introduced her stepfather, Omar Lopez.

Leahy pointed out that Sotomayor had been nominated to federal judicial positions by three different presidents -- the first President Bush, President Bill Clinton and, now, Obama.

He mentioned that the president often quotes Martin Luther King Jr., who famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” This, he said, was an example of that truth, and he put her nomination as the high court’s first Latino in the context of the Bill of Rights, the Civil War amendments, the amendment giving women the right to vote, the Civil Rights Act and the 26th Amendment, which extended voting rights to those 18 and older.

Her recapped her biography -- Princeton, then Yale Law School -- and pointed out she has “more federal court judicial experience than any nominee to the United States Supreme Court in nearly 100 years.”

As is customary at these hearings, Leahy anticipated the general outlines of the criticism to come from the committee’s Republicans. He cited questions that were designed to embarrass other historic Supreme Court nominees: Thurgood Marshall, who was asked whether he was prejudiced against “white people from the South,” and Louis Brandeis, who was asked questions “about the Jewish mind, and the first Catholic nominee who was probed about loyalty to the pope. (That, as far as we can tell, was Roger Brooke Taney, appointed by President Andrew Jackson in 1836.)

“We are in a different era,” said Leahy, who added, “ I trust that all members of this committee here today will reject the efforts of partisans and outside pressure groups that have sought to create a caricature of Judge Sotomayor while belittling her record, her achievements and her intelligence,” Leahy said. “Let no one demean this extraordinary woman, her success, or her understanding of the constitutional duties she has faithfully performed for the last 17 years. I hope all senators will join together as we did when we considered President Reagan’s nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor as the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court and voted unanimously to confirm her.”

-- Robin Abcarian