Yesterday's historic swearing-in of Judge Sonya Sotomayor as Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court was marred by the politics of the Republican party. I only hope that it comes back to haunt them at the polls. With Hispanics as the largest growing segment of the voting population, Republicans beware: it isn't just ethnic and racial politics either. It's also the disruptive nature of their opposition to health care reform, economic policies, and the reality of climate change.
According to Taegan Goddard's Political Wire, hosted by CQ Politics, those Republican senators who voted for Sotomayor's confirmation were not themselves up for reelection. All twelve of the Republican senators who are up for reelection next year voted against Sotomayor. That could easily go either way: will Hispanic voters in their states have longer memories?
However, according to Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com, the nea votes by Republicans were really about fear of getting a negative score from the National Rifle Association. Of the seven Senators likely to retire between now and 2010, four voted for Sotomayor, including Mel Martinez, Senator from Florida, who then quickly annouced his early retirement. Supposedly they didn't need to care about Hispanic voters (except for Florida, the other nine Senators who voted for Sotomayor come from states with tiny Latino voters), and defied the NRA.
With the GOP overtaken by nuts and extremists, will the Democrats be able to get anything done, or will they, too, sabotage an energetic president who wants to change the culture of Washington?
Posts
1 comment:
The Republican vote on Sotomayor was similar to the Democratic vote on Roberts and Alito, so I don't se what the complaint was about. If there is any complaint to be made, it is that the Demoratic Senators did not vote 100% against those two.
Those who fault the Republican party for their token opposition, are only thinking in the short-term. If Republican President GEorge HW bush had not appointed Sotomayor to the federal District Court, she never would have been on track to be a Supreme Court Justice.
Anyway, we need a liberal to balance off the far right wing in the Supreme Court. I'm not even sure if Sotomayor is to the left of Souter who she is replacing.
Post a Comment