The news is breaking this morning that President Barack Obama has nominated Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor of New York City to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Sotomayor is in line to become the first Latino justice, assuming she can gain Senate confirmation.
One local news angle, alas, was eliminated when Obama passed over
Georgia Supreme Court Justice Leah Ward Sears for the high court
appointment (Sears may have to settle for the consolation of an Appeals
Court judgeship in Atlanta).
But don’t worry – the fact that Sotomayor is Latino means that we’ll be
hearing from some of the louder opponents of immigration that we’ve
come to know so well.
I anticipate that D. A. King, the anti-immigrant activist who never met
a TV camera he couldn’t get in front of, will soon be holding a rally
on the capitol steps to demand that Sotomayor be deported back to
Puerto Rico (a task that may be difficult to achieve, since she is
actually a U.S. citizen who was born in the Bronx).
You can also look for state Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) to introduce
a resolution demanding that the Obama administration run Sotomayor’s
name through the electronic citizenship verification program to make
sure that the president isn’t trying to sneak some illegal wetback onto
the nation’s highest court.
And finally, state Rep. Tim Bearden (R-Wealthy City) will sponsor his
own resolution calling on the Senate to hold “English-only”
confirmation hearings on Sotomayor’s appointment.
Georgia’s U.S. senators, Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, find
themselves in a delicate position as well. Their Republican colleagues
will no doubt be expecting them to join a filibuster to prevent a vote
on Sotomayor’s confirmation.
It was only four years ago, however, when George W. Bush was president
and Republicans controlled the Senate, that the Democratic minority
attempted to block several of Bush’s judicial nominees. Angry Senate
Republicans threatened to invoke the “nuclear option” and repeal the
rule on filibusters, a move that was avoided when Democrats and
Republicans reached a compromise on nominations.
“This is all about politics and nothing about the substance of these
judges, and that’s wrong,” Isakson huffed during that 2005
controversy. He and Chambliss demanded “up-or-down” votes on the Bush
nominees and were outraged at the mere suggestion that a presidential
nomination might be filibustered.
“I cannot envision me not agreeing to allow somebody an up-or-down
vote. The way our country’s judicial system has always worked is to
remove the politics from the nominee,” Chambliss said at the time.
How soon we forget!
Chambliss and Isakson don’t have to worry about irritating Georgia’s
Latino voters, who now are estimated to exceed 100,000 and whose ranks
are growing by the day. Isakson has no credible opposition so far to
his reelection campaign in 2010 and Chambliss won’t have to run again
until 2014 – by which time the pain from that “bum knee” that kept
Chambliss from serving in the military during the Vietnam era will
probably force him to retire from politics.
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