Sotomayor ’76: Judicial philosophy is fidelity to the law

WASHINGTON — Seven weeks after her nomination by President Obama to the nation’s highest court, Sonia Sotomayor ’76 sat alone at a long black table before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday for the opening day of her confirmation hearings.

In her brief remarks before the committee Monday afternoon, Sotomayor recognized family and friends who sat behind her and paid special tribute to her mother, who raised Sotomayor and her brother alone on a nurse’s salary.

Sotomayor mentioned the University just once in her opening remarks, when discussing how hard work in high school earned her scholarships to Princeton and Yale Law School. She then described her career in the legal world before turning to her time as a federal judge.

“Through my 17 years on the bench, I have witnessed the human consequences of my decisions,” she said. “Those decisions have been made not to serve the interests of any one litigant, but always to serve the larger interest of impartial justice.”

After weeks of speculation by politicians, pundits and the press about the way Sotomayor will approach cases before the Supreme Court, the nominee sought to address those concerns.

“In the past month, many senators have asked me about my judicial philosophy,” Sotomayor said. “It is simple: fidelity to the law. The task of a judge is not to make the law. It is to apply the law.”

“And it is clear, I believe, that my record in two courts reflects my rigorous commitment to interpreting the Constitution according to its terms,” she continued, “interpreting statutes according to their terms and Congress’ intent, and hewing faithfully to precedents established by the Supreme Court and my circuit court. In each case I have heard, I have applied the law to the facts at hand.”

Sotomayor, who is Obama’s nominee to replace the retiring Justice David Souter, also briefly discussed what she called her “process of judging.”

“I generally structure my opinions by setting out what the law requires and then explaining why a contrary position, sympathetic or not, is accepted or rejected,” she said. “That is how I seek to strengthen both the rule of law and faith in the impartiality of our justice system. My personal and professional experiences help me listen and understand, with the law always commanding the result in every case.”

Sotomayor’s remarks closed the hearings’ first day, a scripted five-hour event. Earlier in the day, the 19 senators on the committee each read prepared 10-minute statements that crystallized the partisan split over the confirmation almost exactly as expected.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said he found Obama’s statement to nominate judges with empathy “troubling,” arguing that “judging based on empathy is really just legislating from the bench.”

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“President Obama clearly believes that you measure up to his empathy standard,” Grassley said. “That worries me.”

Mindful of the 60-vote Democratic majority in the Senate, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that, barring a “complete meltdown,” Sotomayor would be confirmed.

“My Republican colleagues who vote against you, I assure you, could vote for a Hispanic nominee,” Graham said. “They just feel unnerved by your speeches and by some of the things that you’ve said and some of your cases.”

Democratic members of the committee came to Sotomayor’s defense, with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) arguing that observers “be a little wary of a phrase they’re hearing at this hearing: ‘judicial activism.’ ”

“That term really seems to have lost all usefulness,” Feingold said. “Perhaps we should just all accept that the best definition of a judicial activist is a judge who decides a case in a way you don’t like.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) responded to concerns raised by Republicans about Sotomayor’s ability to administer justice fairly to all Americans.

“We’ve been tremendously blessed on this committee with the gift of having members with different backgrounds and different experiences,” she said, “just as different experiences are a gift for any court in this land.”