Posts Tagged ‘Sonia Sotomayor’
Judge Sonia Sotomayor sworn in as Supreme Court Justice
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
Justice Sonia Sotomayor took the judicial oath on Saturday, becoming the first Hispanic and third woman to serve on the Supreme Court in United States history.
At just past 11 a.m., Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. administered a pair of oaths to her in two private ceremonies at the Supreme Court building, completing her ascent to a life-tenured position as the nation’s 111th justice, and the first to be nominated by a Democratic president since 1994.
In the first ceremony, which took place in the justice’s conference room and was attended only by her relatives and a court photographer, she took the standard oath affirmed by all federal employees, swearing to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
She and the chief justice then walked to the court’s East Conference Room for the judicial oath, in which she stood before about 60 friends and family members and swore to “administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me” under the Constitution and laws of the United States.
The appointment of Justice Sotomayor, 55, capped a life story that began in a Bronx housing project, where the Puerto Rican girl was raised by her widowed mother. She later attended two Ivy League schools, worked as a prosecutor in the office of the Manhattan district attorney, and then left for a stint at a corporate law firm.
Throughout the 1980s, she also became increasingly engaged in civic life, joining the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and winning appointments to the New York City Campaign Finance Board and the board of the State of New York Mortgage Agency…
Saturday’s oath-taking ceremonies brought to a close a 10-week confirmation battle – mostly with ideological bigots!
Bravo!
Ed Rollins advises Republicans, “Don’t go to war over Sotomayor”
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
Almost everybody cheers for the underdog — maybe not those born to upper-class standing with great advantages, but those of us who weren’t always want the little guy to be victorious.
We want hard work and extra effort to be rewarded. Standing at the front of the East Room of the White House Tuesday morning were two Americans who clearly had started life as underdogs.
One is now our president, son of a Kenyan. The other is the daughter of Puerto Rican parents who is about to sit on the highest court in the land. Both were born without privilege. Both were raised in households with little cash, but much love. Both were raised by strong, devoted mothers who worked hard to support them.
Both were encouraged that through hard work and education they could go beyond the boundaries of their environment and their class. Somehow the flame of ambition was lit and both became outstanding students who didn’t need affirmative action programs to get to the top of their class.
Both are extraordinary role models for the next generation of Americans and both will be historic figures. And the important thing is that both President Obama and Judge Sonia Sotomayor never forgot where they came from or the people who helped them move forward to such heights.
It was a day to make all Americans proud.
Supreme Court nominee illustrates the American Dream. The Republican Party hates her. Of course.
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
President Obama has nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as his first appointment to the court.
If confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, Judge Sotomayor, 54, would replace Justice David H. Souter to become the second woman on the court and only the third female justice in the history of the Supreme Court. She also would be the first Hispanic justice to serve on the Supreme Court.
Conservative groups reacted with sharp criticism on Tuesday morning. “Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written,” said Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network…
Judge Sotomayor has sat for the last 11 years on the federal appeals bench in Manhattan. As the top federal appeals court in the nation’s commercial center, the court is known in particular for its expertise in corporate and securities law. For six years before that, she was a federal district judge in New York…
Born in the Bronx on June 23, 1954, she was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 8. Her father, a factory worker, died a year later. Her mother, a nurse at a methadone clinic, raised her daughter and a younger son on a modest salary.
Judge Sotomayor graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude in 1976 and and attended Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She spent five years as a prosecutor with the Manhattan district attorney’s office before entering private practice.
But she longed to return to public service, she said, inspired by the “Perry Mason” series she watched as a child. In 1992, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan recommended the politically centrist lawyer to President George H. W. Bush.
That appointment was made by a Republican who was a conservative – not a neocon mouthpiece.
It’s not out of line that a traditional conservative Republican appointed her. Her life is a Horatio Alger story – the sort that inspired generations of Americans to aspire for a better life, willing to fight for a nation that lived up to the standards of our history.
Previously approved by two bi-partisan efforts in Congress, no doubt the Party of “NO” will waste a couple of months on preaching their ideology, trying to stop her appointment to the bench.
