To many liberal Democrats, it’s the height of racism for Republicans to oppose the Supreme Court nomination of likely pro-abort Catholic Sonia Sotomayor. But few remember the Dems’ lynching of the first prominent Latino named to a high judicial post-a pro-life Catholic.

He was-and is-Miguel Angel Estrada Castanada, foreshortened by Hispanic custom and known as Miguel Estrada. In 2001, at age 40, he was nominated by George W. Bush to the District of Columbia’s prestigious Court of Appeals, the first Hispanic to be named to this post. Because his confirmation by the Senate would likely lead to his future appointment to the Supreme Court…and because he seemed a strict constructionist and pro-lifer…defeating him by eye-gouging political tactics didn’t bother the hypocritical members of Democratic liberal sanctimoniousness one bit.

They were: the bloviating Ted Kennedy [Mass.], hustler Dickie Durbin [Ill.], sardonic Chuck Schumer [NY], magisterial Patrick Leahy [Vt.], sepulchral Harry Reid [Nev.] and garrulous Hillary Clinton [N,Y.].

They didn’t give a hoot about torpedoing the first Hispanic to be named to the court of appeals and preventing one from moving on to the Supreme Court for a stretch of nine years. They had one overriding mission to perform that transcended race: keep the Court from tipping conservative and pro-life.

Now the shoe is on the other foot. The Obama White House and the Democrats want credit from Latinos for naming the first Supreme Court Justice and warns Republicans they will be stigmatized as racists if they vote against her.

Immigrant Estrada: the Real Horatio Alger.

Obama’s chief flack David Axelrod extols Sotomayor’s life story which is impressive (as I recount later) but Miguel Estrada’s…moving here from the land of his birth, Honduras without knowledge of English to acknowledged acclaim for his mastery of the law… is much more of a compelling one. If as Obama says, a hardscrabble early life produces needed “empathy” (his word) in a Supreme Court nominee, Estrada should have been confirmed by Democrats hands down and Clarence Thomas should have been carried to his court chambers on shoulders of the senators.

Estrada’s story:

He was born in Teguecigalpa, Honduras in 1961. After his parents divorced he lived with relatives; then, at age 17 he immigrated to the United States with a scant facility in English to be with his mother. Working by day, learning English by night and gaining his scholastic education in the late-late hours, he got a bachelor’s degree from Columbia in 1983 and won a full scholarship to Harvard Law. There he edited its prestigious Law Review, receiving his JD magna cum laude, after which he was chosen as a law clerk by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. From 1990 to `92 Estrada was assistant U.S. Attorney and deputy chief of the appellate section of the southern district of New York.

He served as assistant to the U.S. solicitor general in the Clinton administration. On May 9, 2001 President Bush nominated him to the U. S,. Court of Appeals for the D. C. circuit, a post widely viewed as a stepping-stone to the Supreme Court. He received a unanimous “well qualified” rating from the American Bar Association. But when he was named, a red flag was flown in the Democratic senate caucus by the pantingly liberal Durbin, the party whip who is a wind-sock for lefty interest groups: People for the American Way, NARAL, the Alliance for Justice, the Leadership Council on Civil Rights and the NAACP. They pressured him and he alerted Senate liberals that Estrada’s career should be derailed or he would ultimately tip the court to strict construction.

Initially Democrats felt the chances to beat Estrada amounted to a slam-dunk. When Estrada’s name came to the Senate, the body was evenly divided with Vice President Dick Cheney’s vote breaking a tie. Then liberal Republican Jim Jeffords [Vt.] bolted the GOP, registered as an independent, but caucused with the Democrats, giving the Dems a 50 to 49 edge, out-pointing Cheney’s tie-breaking voting. They took charge of the Senate and gave themselves a 10 to 9 advantage on the Judiciary committee. Estrada’s nomination was thus bottled up in committee.

But the 2002 elections gave Republicans the two seats they needed to regain control of the Senate. Thereupon the Democrats did what they do so superbly when challenged by a nominee of great expertise but who does not comport with liberalism. Schumer and Durbin conferred. They decided on an ingenious plot. Since Estrada worked in the office of Solicitor General at Justice under George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton-the office that decides what issues an administration will push in the Supreme Court-Estrada wrote some confidential memos there on key cases.

Solicitor General’s memos are always confidential (they have to be) they knew, so they plotted: “Why don’t we push for the release of memos Estrada wrote? No administration can release them, so we have an airtight rationale that Estrada and the Bush people have something to hide. We will insist we can’t tell what kind of jurist Estrada would be unless we see the memos and as the Bush administration won’t release them, it smacks of cover-up! And the sympathetic press will cover us.” Thus Schumer and Durbin…the hypocritical conspirators… invented a brilliant but legally insupportable rationale to block this historic appointment, avoiding the real reason: Estrada being a pro-lifer.

With media playing cover-up, the campaign against Estrada started. Schumer, well known on TV for his piercing nasal Bronx accent (he pronounces “New York” as “Noo Yawk”) , brayed that “no judicial nominee that I’m aware of for such a high court has ever had so little a record”-pushing for release of secret memos– ignoring that Estrada had argued 10 cases as a prosecutor and 7 before the District of Columbia 2nd circuit. Durbin charged that no high court nominee had ever been named to the Supremes or Appeals without having been a judge. Wrong. The greatest chief justice in U.S. history hadn’t been a judge-John Marshall. Neither had the liberals’ favorite chief justice, Earl Warren nor had two other liberal icons who went straight, unblemished by judicial experience to the Supreme Court: Louis Brandeis, a so-called public interest “lawyer for the people” and Hugo Black of Alabama, from the U.S. Senate.

As usual, the media which are designed to catch such political duplicity and inaccurate charges not only didn’t but were complicit in spreading the notion that Estrada and the Justice Department had something to hide. This drumbeat played into the hands of Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle [S.D.]. Daschle charged in a fantasy he wove out of whole cloth that “I have concluded that Mr. Estrada holds positions that are extreme in their nature…that could be defined as ultra-far right.” Else why couldn’t the memos he wrote be released? Thus they concocted the specter of Estrada as a stealth candidate for the bench where the Senate was willfully deprived by the Bush White House of viewing his memos that would give it a sense of his philosophy.

Frist Bobbles the Game in the Senate.

Now the scene switches to the Senate where Republicans have some culpability in failing to carry Estrada through to confirmation. There were two misplays for which I blame the Republicans, then under the majority leadership of Bill Frist [Tenn.]. Frist, a distinguished surgeon in private life, was an uncertain and inexperienced Senate leader at best. He flabbily declined to use his majority status to change the Senate rule that demanded a 60 vote majority to break a filibuster and confirm judges. Applying a super-majority to cloture for judges was always a hoax from the beginning, since under the Constitution it applies only to ratification of treaties which requires a two-thirds majority. It’s a throwback to the old civil rights days when the originally segregationist Democratic south held sway in the Senate and applied two-thirds to break a filibuster on civil rights. As result of hard bipartisan work, however, the number to break a filibuster was lowered to 60 in 1975.

A more effective leader than Frist would have rammed-or at least tried to ram–cloture (filibuster breaking) on judicial nominees to a simple majority-51. But Frist shook his fist, thundered he would do so but never actually did: a sure sign of a weak, overly-accommodating leader. Instead a modified “filibuster” began to block the 60 votes, with rules courteously accommodating the opposition…not following the same stringent rules as used in the 1960s on civil rights where filibustering members were forced to swap speeches night after night while their relief members dozed on cots). Thanks to Frist’s weakness.

On March 6, 2003 the first of several votes failed on Estrada-55 voting to end debate on his nomination and 44 voting to continue debate. All seven living ex-Solicitors General stood up for Estrada and testified to a haughty Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that demanding confidential records from the Justice Department as Schumer and Durbin did was unprecedented and grossly improper. But Leahy and the liberal group shrugged off the ex-Solicitors and kept on saying, “what is Estrada hiding?” So after more than two-years (28 months) of enduring Democratic stalling on his nomination, Miguel Estrada pulled the plug and withdrew his name from consideration. Thanks to Schumer and Durbin’s duplicity,…Leahy’s stonewalling…Daschle’s demagoguery…and Frist’s wobbly inexperience and timidity…the chance for the first Latino-a pro-lifer– to serve on a high court was dashed.

Now that the Obama administration implies opposition to Sotomayor is anti-Hispanic, the facts of their culpability on Miguel Estrada deserve greater attention than they have yet received.

Axelrod Orchestrates Sotomayor.

The White House-Democratic party sales job on Sotomayor reflects David Axelrod at his deceptive best. Having known Axelrod in Chicago for 30 years, I recognize his fine handiwork, taken directly from the manual devised by the founder of the craft of public relations, Edward Bernays (who was hired by Woodrow Wilson to goad us into World War I and by the Rockefeller family to beguile us with stories of the family’s compassion, all unfolded in Bernays’ book Manipulating Public Opinion. Bernays dying in 1996 at age 103).

The public has long loved rags-to-riches stories (see the Joe Biden bogus bio story I wrote last week). Axelrod spun the fact that she lived as a child in public housing in New York city. Yes-but not long: she spent from teens to adulthood in a middle-class neighborhood which you don’t hear about.

Also, Axelrod fantasized that she is the child of a single mom, to give the story some heart-tugs. “Single mom” is a phrase that evokes heart-tugs. Sotomayor’s mother was a widow, which doesn’t lend itself to the categorization of “single mom.” In fact as Axelrod well knows, that characterization of a widow as a “single mom” is not just sly but duplicitous.

Not long ago the nationally syndicated columnist Michael Barone used Axelrod’s tactics to make the faux case that he-Barone-came from hardscrabble, disadvantaged background. He was born in a working class neighborhood in Detroit and that his father made his living working with his hands. Early on the Barones moved to Bloomfield Township (a high income suburb) and his father was a surgeon. That tricky policy of evasion is how Axelrod works.

Axelrod’s histronics aside, Sonia Sotomayor has an impressive background–valedictorian at New York’s Blessed Sacrament elementary school; high ranking graduate at Cardinal Spellman High; winner of a full scholarship to Princeton where she received her B. A. summa cum laude; on to Yale for her J.D., she also serving as editor of the prestigious Yale Law Journal; then to work as an assistant to crusty old Robert Morganthau, Manhattan district attorney (the original role model for the TV series Law and Order); following which she was appointed to the federal bench by George H. W. Bush and to the court of appeals by Bill Clinton.

As earlier stated, Sotomayor’s views on abortion are hidden-and she’s not going to reveal them. But any thought that Obama would name a crypto pro-lifer to the high court should be dismissed as fantasy.

But what troubles Republicans up to now are two things that show her as a proponent of racial identity politics. One involves 32 words of a 4,000 word total she delivered during a speech at the University of California-Berkeley more than 7 years ago, on Oct. 26, 2001: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Obama himself appeared before the media to wish she had phrased it better-and Axelrod in the White House has been importuning the media to slough it off as just bad choice of words and “taken out of context.” Nonsense, the sentence was written by her, was not impromptu or extemporaneous as Axelrod maintains.

In fact, the “Latina” application to her judging is replete throughout her speech. She added: “Personal experiences alter the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know how exactly what that difference will make in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and Latina heritage.”

The second trouble spot for Sotomayor was her role in Ricci v. DeStefano when as a member of the 2nd circuit court of appeals’ three-judge panel she ruled against a group of New Haven, Conn. firefighters (19 whites and an Hispanic) in February, 2008. The firefighters brought a charge of reverse racial discrimination. Sotomayor and her colleagues disposed of the complaint with a one-paragraph, unpublished order with no mention of constitutional law that was raised in the appeal. The order was challenged by yet another 2nd circuit judge, an Hispanic who had been appointed by Clinton, Jose A. Cabranes who said the panel ignored “questions of exceptional importance.”

Following Cabranes’ dissent the Supreme Court took up the Ricci case and heard arguments on April 22. The court is expected to issue its finding in June-which may…just may…harm Sotomayor’s chances if the court rules against her.

Liberal Media Threaten Republicans.

A chorus of “mainstream” newspaper and TV commentators are warning the Republicans to keep hands off from criticizing Sotomayor or risk losing even more of the Hispanic vote. Their concern about the GOP is not very convincing given the lynching their Democratic party patrons administered to Miguel Estrada. Last week the GOP Senate strategy seemed to be a good one: as a first order of business, subpoena Frank Ricci of Ricci v. DeStefano to give his side of the affirmative action case. There appears to be no clear-cut view of her philosophy vis-à-vis abortion and it is expected that like all other recent nominees she will dodge any attempt to pin her down.

However, it is clear that throughout Sotomayor’s entire career she has worked the liberal side of the judicial street, larding her “experiences” as a Latina that shape her judgments of the law rather than adhering to the facts of cases impartially. Republicans shouldn’t be intimidated by the media or David Axelrod’s manufactured concern that opposing Sotomayor will harm the GOP with Latinos.

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Tom Roeser is the Chairman of the Editoral Board of the Chicago Daily Observer

Item: two articles…on Obama’s first 100 days and his Notre Dame speech…sounded like the Mediterranean edition of the cuddly “New York Times.” On April 29 the headline was “The 100 Days that Did Not Shake the World” with the copy stating that the new president is not as radical on social issues as was expected-neglecting to point out Obama’s record as a state legislator in killing the Born Alive bill, thus depriving dying infants from botched abortions even the common decency of nutrition and comfort. Nor was there a solitary word about the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) that Obama promised Planned Parenthood he would sign.

Further, the story failed to mention that the Obama administration has made “good” (an ironic word) on fulfilling 10 of 15 issues on the agenda pro-abort organizations submitted to him last December-such as turning back the Mexico City Policy which now allows funding of abortions abroad, reversing the Bush policy so as to funnel funds to the UN Population fund and appointing a pro-abort Catholic, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as HHS secretary, Sebelius having been advised by her bishop, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kans. not to present herself for Communion because of her pro-abort cheerleading record.

Reporting Obama’s talk at Notre Dame, the paper gave it an enthusiastic thumbs-up, not mentioning that 80 U.S. bishops criticized the university for inviting him. Believe it or not the editor, one Gian Maria Vian insisted his coverage of Obama was okay-declaring that Obama has convinced him he is “not a pro-abortion president.” Vian said he “didn’t sense” the newspaper has views different from those of Benedict XVI.

Ergo: Some weeks ago I boasted that the Pope follows his morning Masses by a breakfast of rolls, coffee and a cargo of reading including “The Wanderer,” this nation’s longest running national Catholic weekly. My recommendation: Keep on reading “The Wanderer” but check out carefully your own newspaper and make a note to get rid of editor Gian Vian.

How Catholic Is Sonia?

As I have consistently noted, the misnamed “mainstream media” are absolutely no good on covering religion-especially Catholicism….and particularly locally. Chicago’s silly post `60s delayed flower-girl, Cathleen Falsani of the “Sun-Times” is off the religion beat Deo gratias. But over at the “Tribune,” their blog columnist Manya Brachear is still misleading people from her lefty bent. Yesterday she wrote something that will indubitably get her a pat on the back from Catholic Bruce…Bruce… what’s his name, the editorial page editor who has the Nuremberg philosophy (“I was just following orders”), taking down in stenographic fashion orders from the business office to endorse Obama.

Anyhow, dear Manya did a typically biased opinion piece yesterday pondering how Christian pro-lifers who follow the injunction “Choose Life” can tolerate an assassin who did in George Tiller. That’s par for this flaky liberal, getting her points in by linking the movement with the murder while utterly forgetting to record that a Muslim convert who has deep animosity for the U. S. basis his following of Mohammad shot two soldiers in Little Rock, killing one, an Army recruiter in Arkansas. It’s significant that dear Manya’s Messiah, Obama, issued a statement condemning the murder of Tiller by a pro-lifer but gave not a mention to the killing of the Army recruiter-despite the fact that yesterday he had a golden chance to do so with the announcement of a new secretary of the army. Manya didn’t work that into her column because she is a leftwing propagandist and cannot be expected to cover the news or include items which don’t fit her preoccupations.

If Manya were a creditable journalist…and if Bruce…Bruce what’s his name…was anything but a slavish lackey he would have insisted that she tie the Muslim killing with the Tiller killing. And if anyone covering the confirmation of Sotomayer were competent, he/she would ascertain Sotomayer’s religious bent. It’s an item of some interest since the media are promulgating the fact that if confirmed Sonia will be the sixth Catholic on the Supreme Court.

And if Sonia were a true Catholic, her views on abortion would be in opposition. But media never wonders-and of course Manya doesn’t have a clue. Instead, they keep prattling that she is a “Catholic.” “Catholic” means absolutely nothing in this discourse: it’s the kind of Catholic she is. Well, I’ll help. Dear David Axelrod’s office of propaganda has it that she’s a Catholic, the White House saying “Judge Sotomayer was raised a Catholic.” Then it adds-but the media which don’t believe much in religious observances anyhow didn’t catch it-“…and attends church for family celebrations and other important events.”

Oh. “Family celebrations and other important events.” Orthodox Catholics are required to attend Mass on Sundays, people. That means what it says. What are the “other important events?” Christmas and Easter presumably. Insufficient. It is almost a dead certainty that Sotomayor is what Catholics call “a fallen away.” Which means that very likely she is not pro-life-although to be sure there have been pro-life rulings that have come down from her. Good speculation story for Manya the religion reporter-but she’ll not do it for two reasons…first she has never thought about it and is invincibly ignorant of the implications…and second she is a hopelessly biased lefty who has never contemplated that there is a rationale to be pro-life.

If she were an objective reporter she could write that in 2002 Sotomayor upheld the Bush policy of withholding taxpayer dollars from groups that promote abortion overseas…that two years later she sided with Connecticut pro-life protesters, defending their rights to sue police for using excessive force against them in their demonstrations…that she ruled for illegal immigrants who were fighting deportation to China because of its stringent forced abortion and sterilization policies. But I’m not sure Manya would write this even if she knew it…because why not? Because she would then be consumed with an inner worry that by God Sotomayor might in fact be a closeted pro-lifer in the same way the Souter was a closeted pro-abort. Better to play it the way the White House wants it to be played.

See, these things get in the way of fair coverage when you’re a committed leftwing ideologue.

Which is as dishonest as media playing with the nonsense that Sotomayor is a Catholic when she’s a fallen away…just as they constantly reiterate Barack Obama was a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago when he was a lecturer which is definitely not the same status as professor…repeating also that he has been a deeply ingrained lawyer when he was so deeply ingrained he allowed his law license to expire. And as media lay down, rolled over and wanted its tummy rubbed by refusing to report that Obama has an extensive knowledge of Muslimism. In reward for keeping that quiet, they helped him win. And now…lo and behold…Obama’s State Department says preparatory to his meeting in Saudi Arabia that…guess what?…Obama has an extensive knowledge of Muslimism.

Ask not why people aren’t reading the “Tribune.” The answer is that the paper is replete with Bruce Dolds (there I finally remembered his surname) and Manya Brachears…in every important place but one.

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Tom Roeser is the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Chicago Daily Observer

image Vatican Observatory Castel Gandolfo

As to the last point, go back to my column of a few weeks ago wherein I wrote of a semipermanent Democratic majority largely because of the ever-growing Latino vote. That vote that will not only expand and lock in southwestern and mountain states, but affect midwestern and eastern seaboard states as well. Latinos cast more than seven percent of the vote last year; when that potion rises above ten percent, as it will, it is unlikely you or your kids will ever see another Republican president.

I suspect the Obama team knew full well that Sotomayor had a few vulnerabilities, such as her ineptly worded comments about how a woman of her background might make wiser decisions than some white-bread guy. That simply enhanced the bait for the rabid crowd that would masticate Louis Brandeis if Obama had nominated him.

Let’s acknowledge her comment was badly worded and opened the door to charges of elitism and even anti-white racism. But let’s also acknowledge that her most rapacious opponents know deep down that she is not guilty of such beliefs—though they are great attack points.

Those wild-eyed ones also know deep down that they cannot defeat her, barring some serious new and unlikely revelation. But they cannot resist the attack, even though they also know deep down how costly their words are to the party they love.

Let us also acknowledge that perhaps—as some respectable critics have noted—her written decisions may be neither brilliant nor ground-breaking, despite her exceptional credentials and broad experience.

But here’s the dirty little secret: Much as we would like to think the court represents the best of the best legal minds in the nation, they almost all fall short of that goal. For at least the past half century, the nominees have mostly been purely political choices—such as Clarence Thomas or the failed Harriet Miers—or political compromises such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, both of whom were the best Bill Clinton judged he could get through the senate.

If the greatest legal minds were the real goal, Harvard’s Lawrence Tribe would have been put on the court by acclamation decades ago.

Moreover, credentials and “brilliance” for the most part have little to do with how one ultimately performs as a judge—though politics often does. Ask the brilliant Antonin Scalia.

Do you suppose Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that former Ku Klux Klansman Hugo Black would become one of the most heroic liberal justices of all time?

Earl Warren, was a well-liked, moderate Republican governor of California and one-time vice presidential candidate with Thomas E. Dewey against Roosevelt. No one ever accused him of brilliance, but he turned out to be the most important chief justice of the last century. He sure surprised Dwight Eisenhower, who put him on the court.

John F. Kennedy, our liberal saint, must have been more surprised and disappointed when his appointee, Byron “Whizzer” White, turned out to be as conservative as anyone before Scalia came along.

Speaking of surprises, the two most liberal members of the court, John Paul Stevens and the retiring David Souter, were put there by Republicans Gerald Ford and George Herbert Walker Bush. Who would have guessed? And isn’t it fortunate for guys like me that no one did?

Let’s get real: most of this Supreme Court fight, left or right, has more to do with politics than competency, beyond a certain level. Yes, they can stop a Miers—or back in the ‘70s a Clement Haynsworth of G. Harrold Carswell—on issues of pure competency, as they should have done Thomas, apart from his politics. Robert Bork, whose competency was never in question, got beat on politics.

Narrowing it even further, it’s mostly the politics of abortion and affirmative action that makes the kettle boil. So why don’t we call it like it is—which is not necessarily the way we want it to be.

Sotomayor is certainly as competent as we can expect and might turn out to be liberal as some of us hope—though even she could be a surprise. But the damage her nomination is doing to the Republican Party is supreme.

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Don Rose is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer

With his selection of  Sonia Sotomayor, Obama has validated the philosophy of former US Senator Roman Hruska (R-Ne). Hruska defended the unsuccessful nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to serve on the US Supreme Court by stating: “[T]here are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozoes.”

Hruska’s endorsement speech in support of Carswell branded the senator as a national laughingstock. Carswell’s nomination was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 51 to 45. Carswell was the second consecutive judicial nominee defeated as President Nixon attempted to fill the vacant seat formerly held by former US Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas.

Nixon submitted the name of a third nominee, Harry Blackmun, for appointment to the US Supreme Court before the vacancy was filled. Once on the court, Blackmun was a reliably conservative vote for a brief time before he tacked to the far left. His most infamous opinion in Roe v. Wade created the heretofore undiscovered constitutional right to unrestricted abortion on demand  throughout all three full trimesters of a pregnancy.

Obama’s choice seems to place political considerations above respect for the law. There is a precedent for his power play. For the first seventy years following the Civil War, black voters, where they were permitted to vote, were reliably Republican in their politics. This began to shift following the start of the Great Depression and former Chicago mayor, Edward Kelly, succeeded in changing the balance of power permanently by persuading Alderman William Levi Dawson to switch parties in 1939. Dawson’s political ambitions had been blocked by a rival black Republican ward committeeman, but, as a  Democratic candidate, he was elected to Congress fourteen times and eventually came to control the votes in six predominantly black Chicago wards. Gradually, black voters throughout the country followed suit and migrated to the Democratic party. Obama hopes that his selection of Sotomayor will yield similar political dividends on a national level.

Miguel Estrada, a naturalized Honduran immigrant, was denied an appointment to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals by Democratic members of the US Senate who were determined to deny former President George W. Bush an opportunity to appoint the first Hispanic member of the US Supreme Court. Estrada’s nomination to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals was viewed as a stepping stone appointment that would have culminated in his appointment to the US Supreme Court. Race conscious Democrats feared that such an appointment would result in a political realignment that would see a significant number of Hispanics choosing to identify with the Republican party. Throughout his elective career, George W. Bush secured a significant number of Hispanic votes, although sometimes falling short of a majority, and the Democrats were unwilling to support any judicial nominee that might promote Latino voting for the GOP.

Despite receiving an affirmative endorsement from the American Bar Association, Estrada’s nomination to the Circuit Court was repeatedly blocked due to filibuster tactics employed by the Senate Democrats. The prospect of a Harvard educated, Latino serving as an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court did not please the Democrats. Using the threat of a filibuster to block judicial appointments was unprecedented. Privately, many observers were upset that the Senate Republicans did not force their Democratic colleagues to conduct an actual around the clock filibuster in the Senate chamber. The mediocrities succeeded simply by holding procedural votes and merely threatening to filibuster. After months of delay, with the Republican senators unable to obtain sixty votes to invoke cloture and suspend the debate, Estrada withdrew his name from consideration. Estrada reportedly had a majority of the Senate prepared to support his appointment, but not enough votes to overcome the Democratic filibuster. Afterwards, Senator John McCain (R-Az) and “the Gang of Fourteen”  brokered a lukewarm compromise to limit future filibusters concerning judicial nominees.

Troubling reports have surfaced that linked Sotomayor to activist groups, some of which were funded and sponsored by the billionaire George Soros, that worked to block Estrada’s appointment to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. If such accounts are accurate, the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings may prove to be lively. One wonders if Senator Arlen Specter (?-Pa) regrets the loss of his seniority now that hearings are scheduled before the Senate Judiciary Committee? Specter may no longer command the spotlight during the hearings.

If the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed, it is unlikely that her arrival will immediately alter the balance of power on the court. The retiring Associate Justice, David Souter, has been a reliably liberal vote since the time of his appointment by President George H. W. Bush. Souter was a cipher promoted by former White House chief of staff and New Hampshire governor John Sununu. The supposed masterstroke was that  Souter had virtually no paper trail for the Democrats to attack. Approved on a vote of 90-9, with such worthies as Senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry condemning Souter as a conservative extremist in the mold of Robert Bork, Souter proved to be an absolute disappointment on the bench. Sununu had predicted that Souter would be a “home run” for conservatism, but once in office Souter proved to be a leftist. Justice is blind and so was Sununu.

For the diversity minded, Benjamin Cardozo, who served as an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court following a noteworthy judicial career in New York, was the first Latino to serve on the high court. Cardozo was of Portugese ancestry.

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Daniel J. Kelley is an attorney and a regular contributor to “The Chicago Daily Observer.”

When Roberts was nominated, Dahlia Lithwick, legal analyst for Slate, said, “I wouldn’t underestimate the influence of his religion”; when Samuel Alito was nominated, Lithwick said that “People are very, very much talking about the fact that Alito would be the fifth Catholic on the Supreme Court if confirmed.” Yesterday, Lithwick posted a lengthy piece on Sotomayor that never mentioned her religion. When Roberts was nominated, NPR’s Nina Totenberg said that his wife was “a high officer of a pro-life organization. He’s got adopted children. I mean, he’s a conservative Catholic.” Yesterday, she simply mentioned that Sotomayor attended Catholic schools without ever raising it as an issue. When Roberts was nominated, journalist Adele Stan noted his religion and said, “Rome must be smiling.” Yesterday, in her positive assessment of Sotomayor, she never mentioned her religion.

What’s going on? Are liberal Catholics Catholic? Obviously not, at least according to liberals. After all, if Sotomayor were known as a practicing Catholic, those who fretted over Roberts and Alito would have called 911 by now. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, however, put their worst fears to rest yesterday when he said of the Puerto Rican jurist, “I believe she was raised Catholic.” If this is true, then the telling verb “raised” would explain why liberals like Sotomayor—she’s one of those Catholics they can trust. Let’s hope they’re wrong.

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