Growing Concerns about her Impartiality and Record
 
Sotomayor's Writings and Speeches Show an Out of the Mainstream View of the Role of a Judge

• Repeatedly said (8 times) her ethnicity and gender ("Wise Latina") would make her a "better" judge.  She also said a judge's background will "affect the facts that judges choose to see."

• Believes "The court of appeals is where policy is made..."

• Doubted a judge could be impartial "in even most cases."   Disagreed with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's famous statement that a wise man and a wise woman would reach the same conclusion.

 
Long-time Leader of the Controversial Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF)

• PRLDEF has taken radical positions on the death penalty, abortion, and racial preferences.  Sotomayor served for 12 years as a Board Member and held numerous leadership positions.

• Death penalty: Sotomayor signed a PRLDEF memo opposing New York's proposed reinstatement of the death penalty, arguing that capital punishment creates "inhuman psychological burdens" for the offender and favoring "more benign" punishment for convicted murderers.

• Abortion:  While a "top policymaker" with PRLDEF, it filed briefs in the Supreme Court arguing that taxpayer dollars must fund abortions and against parental notification laws for minor children.

• Hiring Preferences: Sotomayor was an "ardent supporter" of PRLDEF's litigation projects, one of which challenged standard tests for public safety officers.  She helped develop strategy, resulting in officers who passed such tests being denied promotion in favor of officers who had failed them, based on their race.

Questionable Handling of the New Haven Firefighters Case ("Ricci v. DiStefano")

• As a leader of PRLDEF, Sotomayor opposed standardized tests because of alleged "cultural biases."  As a judge, she dismissed claims of 17 white and one Hispanic firefighter who alleged discrimination based on New Haven throwing out the results of a promotional exam because "not enough" minorities did well.

• Widespread concern with how Sotomayor's panel handled the case.  Clinton appointee Judge Jose Cabrenas called it "perfunctory" and a disservice to "weighty issues involved."  Stuart Taylor in the National Journal said the handling was "peculiar," and it "looks much less defensible up close."

• Supreme Court reversed Sotomayor's panel.  All nine justices, including even the dissenters (led by Justice Ginsburg) found that Sotomayor misapplied the law.  Judge Cabrenas had noted her approach would allow employers to throw out an employment exam whenever the results "failed to satisfy a racial quota."  

Ruled Against Second Amendment Rights

• Sotomayor has found that the Second Amendment does not apply against states and localities.  In addition, she twice ruled the Second Amendment is not a "fundamental right."

Advocates Use of Foreign Law

• Sotomayor said American courts should rely more on foreign law, even to interpret our Constitution.

• She said she shared "the ideas of Justice Ginsburg . . . that unless American courts are more open to discussing the ideas raised by foreign cases" we will "lose influence in the world."