U.S. Sen. Richard Burr says he is opposing the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, had said when Sotomayor was nominated he would consider her qualifications and adherence to the Constitution. He met with her in person last week, reports Barb Barrett.
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Sotomayor’s nomination Tuesday. The only Republican voting for her was U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina. Her nomination now goes to a vote in the full Senate.
U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat, already has said that she’ll support Sotomayor.
Read Burr's full statement after the jump.
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“On July 23, with Senate Judiciary hearings behind us, I had the opportunity to meet privately with Judge Sotomayor. Without question, she has impressive academic credentials, a lengthy judicial record, and a personal story that is inspiring to many Americans. These qualities are certainly admirable; however, I am concerned with Judge Sotomayor’s ability to adhere to long-standing case precedent and apply the law according to a strict interpretation of the Constitution. I am troubled by her decisions in cases where she appears to have relied on something other than well-settled law to come to a decision. My fear is that she has been unable to separate her personal belief system from that of the letter of the law.
“In 2005, when then-Senator Obama voted against current Chief Justice John Roberts, he conceded that Roberts had a ‘passion for the law’ and that he was a legal advocate with an ‘excellent record.’ I would say the same thing about Judge Sotomayor. However, it was the uncertainty that then-Senator Obama had about Roberts’ impartiality that resulted in his vote against him. Any concern about uncertainty with our current Chief Justice would pale in comparison to the uncertainty I believe Judge Sotomayor currently presents to the highest court in the land. While she stated in her testimony that she would adhere to legal precedent, her judicial record suggests otherwise. In several cases she has clearly ignored precedent or cited precedent that did not apply to the facts at hand, and I believe let her personal beliefs cloud her judgment.
“The decisions made by the Supreme Court affect the lives of every American. After taking into consideration Judge Sotomayor’s answers to my questions and reviewing her decisions that appear to have departed from the normal principles of jurisprudence, I find little predictability in her decisions and the implications they may have. I am concerned by the several examples where I believe Judge Sotomayor strayed from the rules of strict statutory construction and legal precedence and went with her own deeply held beliefs while providing little explanation. Therefore, I am unable to support her nomination to the Supreme Court.”
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Re: Burr won't support Sotomayor
Race sure does obsess many members of the Republican party: Judge Sotomayor's a racist, President Obama's a racist.
They see reverse racism everywhere, can't see actual conventional racism - as demonstrated shamefully, for instance, at Judge Sotomayor's confirmation hearing.
Republican members of the Judiciary Committee didn't engage her on decisions - except Ricci v. DeStefano, where she & the other two members of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel had no clear precedent (as a previous comment indicated) to justify overturning the District Court's decision. On the contrary, the 1971 precedent of Griggs v. Duke Power Company, a unanimous 8-0 opinion written by Chief Justice (and Nixon appointee) Warren Burger, obliged them to treat the test result as "discriminatory in operation" under the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission's "four-fifths rule" [if minorities passed the test at a rate less than 80 percent of the group with the highest rate, then that test is presumptively illegal due to the "disparate effect" of the test; in this case, less than half as many African American firefighters passed the test.] Even this decision I didn't see discussed seriously, on the facts, but as part of an embarrassing display of race-baiting and disrespectful personal attacks.
She is a centrist judge originally appointed by President George H.W. Bush. Her record's quite conservative: she wrote three opinions favoring anti-abortion protesters; Sotomayor and the panel rejected roughly 4/5 of 96 cases alleging racial discrimination. During her six years as a federal district judge, she sent more convicts to prison and handed out longer sentences than her colleagues. And fewer than average of her decisions were overturned by the Supreme Court (which tends to choose to hear cases they might be interested in over-turning; otherwise they can just let the decision stand).
I'd have preferred that President Obama appoint someone progressive-leaning to our very right-wing court (with Republicans making the appointments for 20 of the last 28 years). Yet I can see that she's an exemplary judge, with an impeccable record and reputation, over which increasingly knee-jerk-oppositional Republicans have been pouring ordure. This told us more about them than about her.
When Senator Burr has attracted national attention, it's been to embarrass us: bragging about his run-on-the-bank instructions to his wife after being briefed on the financial crisis last fall (if his first thought must be for his own interests, hadn't he heard of FDIC insurance?) and his unreasoning (he gave no reason) blocking of Iraq veteran double-amputee Tammy Duckworth to the Department of Veterans Affairs for as long as he could. He's pretty well ensured against votes from Democrats or moderate Republicans, veterans or those concerned with the rights of the disabled. In case he hasn't swept his constituency clean of potential voters, he's also beating back Hispanic and women voters.