Ian Millhiser on Judge Sotomayor

How would you characterize Sotomayor's record as a judge?

I'd characterize it the same way that the non-partisan Congressional Research Service characterized it. It shows an absolute loyalty to the law and precedent. And you see this especially in the cases where she disagrees with her colleagues. She had a voting rights case where a majority of her court created a new exception to the Voting Rights Act, and she wrote a great dissent saying, no, the law actually means what it says. She also disagreed with the Supreme Court recently on an environmental case where they completely rewrote environmental law to give a giveaway to power plant operators. So I think that she shows a much more consistent loyalty to the law than many of the conservatives she's going to join on the Supreme Court, and I think we should welcome that.

What sort of attacks do you think we'll see on Judge Sotomayor during her confirmation hearings?

I think we're seeing two lines of attacks. The first is simply conservatives attacking her for following precedents they don't like. That's what happened in this Ricci case where there's a long line of Second Circuit precedent saying that employers have broad discretion to throw out promotion tests. She followed that because she had to. She has no choice as a lower court judge but to follow precedent. She shouldn't be attacked for that. The most bizarre line of precedent were seeing is Jeff Sessions--Senator Sessions--who has a long history of racially questionable remarks, including a pass where he called the NAACP an un-American and Communist-inspired organization, is now attacking her because she was once on the board of a civil rights organization. So I think that Senator Sessions needs to look really close at himself and get out of the past with that attack.

How important is it that Judge Sotomayor will add diversity to the bench?

I think Judge Sotomayor is going to bring some much-needed diversity to this Supreme Court. There was a case this term called Redding in which a 13 year-old girl was strip searched by her vice principal because the school suspected her of having Ibuprofen--that's the same drug that's in Advil. When that case came up to the Supreme Court, it was very clear that a number of the male justices were ready to rule against her and say that this strip search was fine. Justice Ginsberg worked very hard to change their mind, and fortunately she was successful. But she was successful because she had once been a 13 year-old girl herself. So she understood how invasive that search was, and how it can not be tolerated in this country. Judge Sotomayor is only going to be the second woman and the second person of color on this Supreme Court, and we need that perspective, because we need the highest court in the land to understand what it's like to be any kind of American.