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The Myth of Sotomayor's 60 Percent Supreme Court Reversal Rate
Tweet Share on Facebook May 28, 2009 Comment (105)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
One of the sillier attacks on Sonia Sotomayor is that some large proportion of her decisions has been overturned by the Supreme Court. She has, some conservatives breathlessly report, been overturned by the court 60 percent of the time. That seems pretty high, right?
Not so much.
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America Likes Sotomayor, Especially Democrats and Women
Tweet Share on Facebook May 28, 2009 Comment (2)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Jack Farrell may argue that Sonia Sotomayor is Sam Alito on the left ("a studious Catholic baby boomer who enlisted in the meritocracy, graduated from prestigious Ivy League schools [Princeton, Yale Law], and served as a federal judge, showing considerable competence, and zero signs of legal artistry or intellectual genius")—and he may be right—but she beats him in at least one regard: initial polling numbers. According to Gallup, 47 percent of Americans rate Sotomayor as an excellent or good choice, while only 33 percent regard her as "only fair" or "poor." (A separate Rasmussen Poll puts the figure at 49-36, with 45 percent favoring her confirmation, 25 percent opposing and 26 percent unsure.) Her net 14 point positive balance in Gallup is only exceeded among this decade's Supreme Court nominees, according to Gallup, by John Roberts (51-34). Alito (43-39) and the unforgettable Harriet Miers (44-41) each received much more mixed initial reactions.
What does this tell us about how Sotomayor would be as a Supreme Court justice? Nothing at all. But it does indicate that the Obama White House handled her roll-out pretty well.
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Time to Repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell? Most Americans Favor Gays in the Military
Tweet Share on Facebook May 27, 2009 Comment (101)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
One other item worth noting from the new Gallup poll on Americans' views regarding gays: A huge majority of Americans—69 percent—now support gays being able to serve in the U.S. military.
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New Poll, California Proposition 8 Show We've Got a Ways to Go on Gay Marriage
Tweet Share on Facebook May 27, 2009 Comment (52)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Yesterday's (correct but frustrating) California Supreme Court decision upholding the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 was such a blow in part because so much progress has been made on marriage equality in recent weeks elsewhere in the country (Maine, Iowa, even New Hampshire, though that progress has stalled). But supporters of gay marriage should not confuse progress with success, a fact reinforced by a new Gallup poll released this morning.
According to the poll, a strong majority of Americans (57 percent) continue to oppose gay marriage (with 40 percent favoring it). The good news is that in digging deeper one can find some reasons for optimism.
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Would Sotomayor Be the First Hispanic Supreme Court Justice or Was It Cardozo?
Tweet Share on Facebook May 26, 2009 Comment (121)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
It's been widely reported that Judge Sonia Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court, though a few people (including some TV commentators) have wondered whether Justice Benjamin Cardozo (on the court from 1932-1938) should not in fact be counted as such.
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Forget Abortion and Gay Marriage--Where Is Sonia Sotomayor on Executive Power?
Tweet Share on Facebook May 26, 2009 Comment (7)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
One issue in Judge Sonia Sotomayor's candidacy for the high court that I'll follow with special interest is what if anything she says about executive power. It may not have the political sex appeal of abortion and gay marriage, but it's important. The imperial presidency ran out of control in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, with Bush administration officials more or less claiming that in the name of national security the president could do whatever he damn well pleased. My old colleague Charlie Savage wrote an important article in Sunday's New York Times laying out the question in the context of the short list, which of course included Sotomayor.
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Is Sotomayor Too Obnoxious for the High Court? The Kennedy Angle
Tweet Share on Facebook May 26, 2009 Comment (5)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
David Frum has a post about the Sotomayor nomination that makes a point both amusing and a bit horrifying. Frum writes that there is good news for conservatives in that the SCOTUS scuttlebutt has been that Anthony Kennedy has been a left-leaning swing vote in recent years in negative reaction to the brilliant but mean Antonin Scalia.
Having lost in 2008, Republicans had no hope of a conservative or even a moderate judicial nominee. What we should therefore be hoping for, my friend continues, is the most personally obnoxious liberal, someone certain to offend and irritate Kennedy—and push him careening back rightward.
So, Frum writes, assuming that the reports are true that she is something of a dislikable bully, she is the perfect choice so far as conservatives are concerned. It's an amusing take ... but there's something genuinely disquieting about the notion that high court decisions are being made on the basis of grade schools clique-ism (I don't like Tony, so I'm going to vote against him; wow, I like Sonia even less, so maybe I'll swing back to the right.)
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California Supreme Court Was Right to Uphold Anti-Gay Marriage Prop 8
Tweet Share on Facebook May 26, 2009 Comment (64)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The California Supreme Court today upheld the legality of the state constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage there.
While I am squarely in favor of marriage equality, the court seems to have made the correct (if undesirable) decision in this case. The bottom line is that California voters can amend their constitution through referenda and they did so. They were wrong, but it's their right. And at the same time, the 18,000 marriages that had been conducted were valid at the time and so should remain valid.
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Terminator: Salvation vs. Star Trek
Tweet Share on Facebook May 22, 2009 Comment (6)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
When Star Trek came out I blogged that it could represent (or be a leading indicator of) a change in the national mood. We went through a post-9/11 period in movies and television where our movies were dark and gritty and our heroes were reluctant, tortured (sometimes literally as in Casino Royale) and the bad guys were ascendant. Think of Lord of the Rings, the Batman films, and Battlestar Galactica , to name a few. J.J. Abrams's Star Trek had a different tone—a planet-killing villain, yes, but its mood is optimistic and upbeat, punctuated by trauma. The post-9/11 era movies were traumatic and stressful but occasionally relieved by success or fleeting happiness. One could describe Star Trek as a Barack Obama movie and the others as Dick Cheney flicks, tonally speaking.
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Cheney's Dour Tone and Dismissive Attitude Will Sink Republicans
Tweet Share on Facebook May 22, 2009 Comment (14)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Forget the specifics of their arguments for a moment—who got the better of the national security speech-off yesterday, tone-wise? Obama did (perhaps not surprisingly given his well-known rhetorical talents). In fact in purely tonal terms (and yes, things like tone matter in modern politics), the Republicans would be hard-pressed to find a worse spokesman.
