Nomination Of Sonia Sotomayor To Be An Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States - Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, over the past few weeks of meetings and hearings, both the Senate and the American people have witnessed the intelligence, the legal understanding, and dedication to the law that makes Judge Sonia Sotomayor well qualified to be our next Supreme Court Justice. Today, I rise to support her nomination and share a few thoughts on why I think Judge Sotomayor should be confirmed as the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

When I was in college I took a freshman seminar on the Bill of Rights. Each week, our professor would give us the facts of a Supreme Court case without the opinions and would ask us to draft our opinion of a situation. After we had prepared our opinion, we would share them the next week, and then and only then read the official majority and minority opinions of the Justices. It was quite an education in the Bill of Rights.

Over the course of the semester, many of us came to identify with the approach and viewpoints of one Justice or another. It was very helpful in gaining insight into my own thinking and that of our Supreme Court. So when I met Judge Sotomayor, I posed a question to her: Which judge do you most identify with? Her answer was Justice Benjamin Cardozo.

Let me tell my colleagues a little bit about Benjamin Cardozo. A native of New York, he served on the New York Court of Appeals, the highest State court in New York, from 1914 to 1932, and then on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1932 to 1938. Cardozo was descended from Portuguese Jewish immigrants who long ago had fled the Spanish Inquisition, and Cardozo was the first Jewish person to serve on the New York Court of Appeals. His careful, brilliant opinions on New York law earned him wide recognition as one of our Nation's most outstanding judges.

When he was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1932, he was confirmed by the Senate by a unanimous voice vote. I can see many reasons why Judge Sotomayor, as a native New Yorker, as a child of Spanish-speaking immigrants from Puerto Rico, and as a longtime judge in New York might identify with Justice Cardozo. I am sure Judge Sotomayor would love to extend the parallel to Cardozo's unanimous Senate confirmation vote. But Judge Sotomayor cited none of these reasons. Rather, she pointed to his particular approach to judging--the careful, fact-intensive approach that was Cardozo's hallmark.

Let me put that observation in context. Cardozo served as a judge during the industrializing early 20th century. Because of the rapidly changing times in which he lived, he was faced with a wide range of cases that raised new and difficult issues. His opinions became recognized for drawing deeply on the facts of individual cases and relied heavily on the development of the law that came before him. He was innovating and forward-looking but also deeply respectful of careful development of the law.

He described his style as one of steady, hard work. Justice Cardozo and Judge Sotomayor share a love for steady, hard work--the steady, careful development of law that comes from fact-intensive, careful judging. These are approaches to law that will serve the judge well as our next Supreme Court Justice.

Interpreting the Constitution is, of course, a challenge. Our Constitution is mostly written in broad, general directives. For example, our first amendment says Congress shall pass no law ``abridging the freedom of speech.'' Our fourth amendment ensures persons shall be free in their homes from ``unreasonable searches and seizures.'' The fourteenth amendment declares that no State shall ``deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.''

Those broad phrases do not provide easy answers to complicated cases. When is a search or seizure unreasonable? When does a practice or law abridge freedom of speech? When does a practice or law abridge equal protection under the law?

Our first Chief Justice, John Marshall, correctly noted it is the responsibility of the judicial branch to provide answers. How should a Supreme Court Justice go about providing these answers?

Judge Sotomayor's background and record offer a model for how it should be done. First, she brings to her work extraordinary academic and experiential qualifications. She graduated at the top of her class from Princeton University and from Yale Law School. She brings valuable life experience from growing up in public housing in the Bronx, from serving as a prosecutor in New York City, and from working as an attorney in private practice. In 1992, she was appointed to the Federal bench by President George Herbert Walker Bush. During the following 17 years, including 11 on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, she weighed in on over 3,000 panel decisions and authored about 400 published opinions.

What this body of work shows, more than anything else, is that Judge Sotomayor is diligent and prudent in her approach to hearing and deciding cases. She thoroughly weighs the facts and carefully adapts the principles expounded by previous courts to reach a just result in each new set of circumstances. In fact, the reason many find it difficult to pin a label on her--be it conservative or liberal--is because her decisions do not follow ideological lines. Rather, they emerge from close readings of previous cases and careful thought about the implications of the particular facts. Clearly, the judge's respect for Justice Cardozo isn't just an off-the-cuff remark. Hers is record a judicial record that Benjamin Cardozo would be proud of.

Just as Cardozo faced the challenge of interpreting the Constitution in a newly industrialized state, so, too, do we face the challenge of interpreting the Constitution in a high-tech, globally interconnected world. The answers to tomorrow's constitutional questions will not be easy. But if we follow Judge Sotomayor's approach, our constitutional interpretations will be built on the wise interpretations of the past. We will, with this approach, have confidence that our Supreme Court will stay true to the body of principles of justice and freedom that are at the heart of our constitutional tradition.

Let me summarize. Judge Sotomayor has a stellar academic background. She brings diverse and valuable life experiences. She has a distinguished record on the bench, and she will bring a carefully measured judicial approach and valuable insights to our Supreme Court.

Moreover, the value of the diversity that Sotomayor would bring to the Court, as a woman, as an American of Puerto Rican descent, cannot be overstated. We often talk about government by and for the people. That is a cherished part of our tradition. We often talk about it in terms of the diversity of those who serve in the executive branch. We often talk about it being important in the diversity of those who serve in the legislature, so we can bring valuable insights to bear. But government by and for the people extends to the judicial branch as well. We need to have the insights that flow from having judges with many different life experiences.

I am confident Sonia Sotomayor will be a wise guardian of our Constitution. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to join me in casting their votes to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

I yield the floor.

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