Sonia Sotomayor is Barack Obama’s pick for Supreme Court
May 26, 2009 at 6:09 am by Peter Schweitzer
By Peter Schweitzer
PoHo contributor
UPDATE 8:46 a.m.: Barack Obama will announce later this morning his selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the Federal Appeals Court as his nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, The New York Times reports. If confirmed by the Senate she will be the third woman on the court and the first Hispanic justice.
The MSM will undoubtedly cast Obama’s first Supreme Court choice in terms of liberal vs. conservative. While the consequences of Barack Obama’s decision will have political overtones, the real debate centers around how the document in question (the U.S. Constitution) should be interpreted.
In the one camp, there’s Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas.
In the other, Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and John Paul Stevens are firmly situated.
And Obama could announce the next member of the high court as early as today.
It’s really a debate about textual criticism. Is the Constitution to be treated as a living, breathing document meant to be interpreted in light of the current social circumstances, or is it a historic document to which one must genuflect in adoration without manipulating its original intent?
Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas prefer genuflection. They are strict constructionists who firmly believe the document must be interpreted in the light of the author’s original intent. What did those white, male gentry have in mind when they wrote our nation’s founding legal document? Any derivation from this original intent is considered anathema.
On the other hand, there’s Breyer, Ginsburg, and Stevens who think the Constitution should be read and interpreted in the light of the country’s prevailing social, economic, cultural, and political circumstances. In their view, the Constitution is a vibrant document that sketches in broad strokes our nation’s underlying philosophical principles. As they see it, the duty of the justice is to apply those principles to the present day circumstances.
It’s an important philosophical and intellectual divide that has more than an ivory tower power over the lives of its nation’s citizens.
There’s plenty of intellectual firepower on both sides — particularly from Roberts, Scalia, Breyer and Ginsburg. It’s clear from President Obama’s statements about his view of the court and the Constitution that he sides with the latter group.
Unfortunately, the Senate confirmation hearings will be nothing more than a boring show of duck and cover. Ever since Robert Bork’s failed confirmation in 1987, the proceedings have devolved into nothing more than a “no comment” from the nominee. Every administration since that time knows that the successful nominee will give only the vaguest answers to questions about judicial philosophy and temperament. Administrations have tended to pick court nominees that have no paper trail. Of course, such vanilla nominees can provide plenty of consternation for the Presidents who chose them. Just ask Bush 41 (David Souter) and Nixon (Harry Blackmun).
