It is an historic moment for Hispanic Americans and for all New Yorkers.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote this week on whether New Yorker Sonia Sotmayor will be approved as the next U.S. Supreme Court justice. And, if the facts of her remarkable life are considered, she should be confirmed and she will make history.
In the first hours of the hearings, Democrats praised her as a judicial pioneer, although some Republicans questioned her impartiality. Despite a few negative comments, hardline conservative Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, told Sotomayor: "Unless you have a complete meltdown, you're going to get confirmed." The committee's Democratic chairman, Patrick Leahy of Vermont opened the hearings with warm words for the nominee: "She's been a judge for all Americans. She'll be a justice for all Americans."'
In her opening statement, Judge Sotomayor told the Senators, “My personal and professional experiences help me listen and understand, with the law always commanding the result in every case.”
If she is confirmed, Judge Sotomayor will become the first Hispanic person to take a seat on the high court. For all Americans her story has special meaning.
Born to a Puerto Rican family, she grew up in a public housing project in the South Bronx. Her father, a factory worker, died when she was nine. Her mother raised her while working as a nurse.
When he appointed her, President Obama called Sotomayor "an inspiring woman who I believe will make a great justice.'' Her modest reply: "I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences."
She attended Princeton and Yale Law School. At Princeton, she fought for minority rights, personally invading the office of the university president to protest that there were no faculty members of Puerto Rican or Mexican descent. Nonetheless, she graduated summa cum laude.
Ms. Sotomayor served as an assistant DA under New York's venerable prosecutor, Robert Morgenthau, who praises her highly. Later, she served as a federal judge for 17 years.
Now, as she seeks confirmation from the Senate panel, some critics believe she might be biased in her approach to cases involving minority rights. Indeed, when she took a seat on the federal appeals court in New York eight years ago, she said it was "shocking" that there were not more minority women on the federal bench.
A review of hundreds of her past cases by the Associated Press showed "little of that activist sentiment." One Washington lawyer, Kevin Russell, said: "This is a judge who does not see it as her job to fix all the social ills in the world."
It's a fascinating moment in the history of the Supreme Court and the personal history of a distinguished daughter of New York.
