Is It True that Sotomayor Would Be the First Hispanic Justice of the Supreme Court?
ByThe mainstream media is reporting dutifully and unquestioningly that President Obama has nominated the first hispanic for the SCOTUS. The claim is not legally important, but we believe the claim’s political power was probably the key motivation for Sotomayor’s selection.
The comments of Republicans who oppose Sotomayor’s confirmation will be used by the Democratic party to make the case to hispanic Americans that the Republican party opposes their interests and representation in government. The willingness of these Republicans to sit on the sidelines or block “the first hispanic Supreme Court Justice” despite what the media and hispanics everywhere will no doubt recognize as Sotomayor’s impressive resume will be used as evidence to the still large number of independent and Republican hispanics that the party sees them as second-class citizens, not-to-be-trusted. President Obama and Senate Democrats with the media in tow will set up the politics of us-against-them, with Republicans being “them.”
It is within that context, that we offer the following dissent to Sotomayer being labeled the first hispanic Supreme Court nominee. Andrew Kaufman, Harvard law professor and biographer of Justice Cardozo, writes:
“The Cardozos and the Nathans [Cardozo’s maternal ancestors] came to the American colonies in the eighteenth century via Holland and England. The family legend is that the Cardozos came from Portugal but there is no firm documentation about the particulars. The family tree is filled with names like Seixas, Mendes, Gomez, Riveiro, Navarro, Peixotto, and Pachecho, indicating their heritage as Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula.
I have had many long conversations with a variety of newspaper people about whether Cardozo was the first whatever-name-you-want-to-use. It’s all in the context. Many Spanish would deny that Portuguese are Hispanic. Many Jews do not regard themselves as ethnically part of the European country they came from. Many Sephardic Jews probably do regard themselves as ethnically Spanish and Portuguese and Cardozo’s synagogue was and still is known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue. Many Spanish and Portuguese probably did not regard Jews as part of their culture, and I can understand that many Americans of Mexican heritage would not so regard Cardozo.
By the way, a number of years ago the Portuguese consul in Boston enlisted my help in trying to get Cardozo on an American stamp as part of a Portuguese-American celebration. And more by the way, just last week, I was the speaker at the farewell dinner for the current Portuguese consul in Boston. She suffered an attack of migraine in a bookstore and when she opened her eyes, she found herself staring at a book called Cardozo, recognized it as a Portuguese name, and asked me to speak. The name Cardozo still resonates for Portuguese.”
As any first-year Torts student at an American law school will know, Justice Benjamin Cardozo is today one of the most revered judges in this history of the Republic. If they know their history, they may also know that he was appointed to the Supreme Court by Republican President Herbert Hoover. Cardozo’s opinions as an appellate judge before his nomination are often the highlight of the study of Tort law in the United States (for better or for worse) and his accomplishments as an appellate judge easily eclipses Sotomayor’s celebrity as the judge who saved the player’s union in Major League Baseball.
Don’t get us wrong, we don’t believe that GOP Senators should waste precious time and media channels arguing that Sotomayor was not the first hispanic to be nominated. Let the blogosphere pick up that slack. We do believe, however, that if the GOP will oppose this very likely activist judge, they would be wise to point out from the beginning that they object also to efforts from the Democratic Party to use Sotomayor and her nomination as a means to manipulate hispanic voters. The GOP does not object to the fact that Sotomayor is a Puerto-Rican American just as it did not object to the fact that the more qualified Benjamin Cardozo was arguably hispanic as well as jewish.
This shouldn’t be about race or interest-group politics; it should be about defending the constitution.
Related Stories and Resources on the Web:
Overlawyered: At Forbes.com: Sonia Sotomayor Nomination
Overlawyered: Did Sotomayor ‘Save Baseball’?
Right Wing News: Sonia Sotomayor is What We Expected from Obama
Right Wing News: Everything You Need To Know About The Sonia Sotomayor Nomination In Under 200 Words
Mike’s America: Obama Plays Race, Sex and Ideology Cards with Supreme Court Pick
Gateway Pundit: Obama Picks Lib Activist Sonia Sotomayor For Supreme Court
Powerline Posts:
* Coming Soon to a Sound-Bite Near You
* How Will the Sotomayor Nomination Play Out?
* A Long Statute of Limitations Period
Volokh Conspiracy Posts:
* Justice Cardozo as ‘Hispanic’ or ‘Latino’
* Initial Thoughts on the Sotomayor Pick
* Would Sotomayor be the First Hispanic Justice?
* Sotomayor’s Troubling Property Rights Ruling in Didden v. Village of Port Chester
* A Much Better Sotomayor Property Rights Opinion
CNS News Posts:
* Sotomayor Made a Law Firm Apologize for Questions about Her Heritage
* Senate Republicans Say They’ll Treat Sotomayor ‘Fairly’
* Sotomayor Dismissed A Reverse-Discrimination Case in One-Paragraph Opinion
FOX News Posts:
* Sotomayor’s Judicial Record Could Be Battlefield for Critics, Advocates
* Sotomayor Will Face Tough Questions, but Road to Confirmation Should be a Smooth One
* Democrats Have Senate Numbers to Confirm Sotomayor – Almost
Michelle Malkin: SCOTUS Pick – Sonia Sotomayor
Hot Air: Law professor – Sotomayor Lacks ‘Intellectual Depth’
Hot Air: Obama Picks Sotomayor for SCOTUS Slot
World Net Daily: ‘Activist’ Appellate Judge Picked for Supreme Court
Red State: Obama Picks Sotomayor
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: A New Turn Left on the Supreme Court
WSJ: Obama Picks Sotomayor for Court
Weekly World News: Obama Picks Sotomayor
Polipundit: It’s Sotomayor
Blonde Sagacity: Sonia Sotomayor – Far, Far Left Judge for SCOTUS
Reuters: Obama Picks Sotomayor for Supreme Court
Conservative Revolution: Judge Sotomayor’s Candid Admission of Activism
