I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
President Barack Obama announced this morning that federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor is his selection to replace Justice David Souter on the United States Supreme Court.
If confirmed by the Senate, which seems likely with 59 Democratic Senators, Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic and only the third woman to serve as a Supreme Court Justice.
In announcing Sotomayor, Obama said that he chose an “inspiring woman whom I believe will make a great justice.”
In remarks to the press at the press conference announcing her nomination, Sotomayor praise her mother, saying, “I am all I am because of her — and only half the woman she is.”
Sotomayor serves as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, having been confirmed to that position by the Senate in 1998. She was originally picked as a federal court judge by the first President George Bush in 1991 and confirmed in 1992.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and so will head the confirmation hearings for Sotomayor. He expressed support for Obama’s selection in a statement.
Leahy said, “I believe that Judge Sotomayor will be in the mold of Justice Souter, who understands the real-world impact of the Court’s decisions, rather than the mold of the conservative activists who second-guess Congress, and who through judicial extremism undercut laws meant to protect Americans from discrimination in their jobs, their access to health care and education, and their privacy from an overreaching government.”
Sotomayor was the victim of an early “whisper campaign” according to Talking Points Memo. TPM looked at the campaign which is seemingly centered around an article from The New Republic.
Meanwhile, the White House has their talking points on the selection out, including that she has “bipartisan support that proves good judging transcends political party” as evidenced by being nominated for judicial positions by Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
The conservative Judicial Confirmation Network almost immediately signaled opposition to Obama’s selection, with Wendy Long saying in a statement that Sotomayor “has an extremely high rate of her decisions being reversed, indicating that she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court.”
