Republicans, Democrats at odds in Sotomayor debate

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans are lining up to criticize Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as unfit for the bench while Democrats offer effusive praise of the judge whose confirmation this week as the first Hispanic justice is all but assured.

The Senate is continuing a history-making debate on Sotomayor, dominated by Republican charges that she would bring bias to the court and assertions from Democrats that she’s a mainstream moderate. Nearly three-quarters of GOP senators oppose Sotomayor, leaving just a handful breaking with their party to join Democrats in backing President Barack Obama’s first high court nominee.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., calls Sotomayor’s nomination a “truly an American story” that reflects the American dream. “She’s a restrained, experienced and thoughtful judge who has shown no bias in her rulings,” Leahy said.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Republican and his party’s pointman on Sotomayor, called her a devotee of an approach that heeds “the seductive siren call of judicial activism” and is contrary to the “classical underpinnings” of the nation’s legal system.

“Judge Sotomayor’s expressed judicial philosophy rejects openly the ideal of impartial and objective judging. Instead, her philosophy embraces the impact that background, personal experience, sympathies, gender and prejudices — these are her words — have on judging,” Sessions said.

Sotomayor, 55, is the daughter of Puerto Rican parents who was raised in a South Bronx housing project and educated in the Ivy League before going on to success in the legal profession and then the federal bench. Obama chose her to replace retiring Justice David Souter, a liberal named by a Republican president, and she’s not expected to alter the court’s ideological balance.

Still, Republicans call her an activist who would bring bias to the high court, pointing to a few rulings in which they argue she showed disregard for gun rights, property rights and job discrimination claims by white employees. They’re also unsatisfied with Sotomayor’s explanation of a 2001 speech — similar to comments she’s made throughout her career — in which she said she hoped a “wise Latina” would usually make better decisions than a white male.

Democrats point instead to a long record of rulings in which Sotomayor has reached the same conclusions as judges who are considered more conservative. They call her a moderate who is restrained in her legal interpretations and argue that her controversial remarks — while perhaps worded inartfully — show nothing more than a belief that diverse experiences help a judge see all sides of a case.