When Barack Obama became President of the United States, the Republican Party decided to become the Party of “No.”
When President Obama appointed Sonia Sotomayer to become the next Supreme Court justice, the Party of No decided to vote “No” on that appointment.
Today, in the confirmation hearing, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona grilled Judge Sotomayer about the “wise Latina” phrase that Sotomayer had used in speeches that she had given to law students.
Judge Sotomayer was a District Court Judge for 6 years, and she has been an Appeals Court Judge for almost 11 years. She has ruled in thousands of cases and written hundreds of opinions, but Senator Kyl is not asking about her judicial activity. That would require a lot of homework, and Kyl might not find anything in her judicial activity that Kyl can use against her.
As a member of the Party of No, Senator Kyl has already decided to vote “No” on Sotomayor's nomination. Now, he is searching for a reasonable excuse for his “No” vote.
Some news anchors have speculated about the number of senators that will vote in favor of Sotomayor's nomination. Is that really of any importance? We already know that 40 senators belong to the Party of No, so we cannot really expect many of them to vote for Sotomayor. Perhaps the most interesting results will be those of the Republican senators who are up for reelection in 2010: Shelby (AL), Murkowski (AK), McCain (AZ), Martinez (FL), Isakson (GA), Crapo (ID), Grassley (IA), Brownback (KS), Bond (MO), Gregg (NH), Burr (NC), Voinovich (OH), Coburn (OK), DeMint (SC), Thune (SD), and Bennett (UT). I know that Martinez has already announced that he will not be running for reelection, and Gregg has said that he might not run for reelection.
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