More About Obama's Supreme Court Nominee Sotomayor...

Concerning Obama's Supreme Court Judge nominee Sonia Sotomayor, here are a few interesting tidbits from her past as a judge. Obviously, as an Obama nominee, she leans well to the left of center on many issues.

First a little background info. Sotomayor graduated from a Catholic High School in NYC, , achieved summa cum laude at Princeton, and was editor of the Yale Law Journal at Yale Law School. She was an assistant DA in Manhattan before entering private practice, and eventually was appointed by Pres. George Bush Sr. to a District Court in NY. She was nominated by Bill Clinton for the 2nd Circuit.

Her record shows extensive experience with race-baiting. Her most infamous quote probably came in 2001, in a lecture titled "A Latina Judge's Voice." She stated "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." Yahoo.com reported, "The remark was in the context her saying that 'our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging'."

The New York Times reports that Sotomayor has "championed the importance of considering race and ethnicity in admissions, hiring and even judicial selection at almost every stage of her career-- as a student activist at Princeton and at Yale Law School, as a board member of left-leaning Hispanic advocacy groups and as a federal judge arguing for diversity on the bench."

In 2003, a group of 19 white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter in the city of New Haven, Conn., filed suit claiming that the city engaged in racial discrimination when it disregarded the results of two promotion tests that all 20 had passed, and no black applicants had passed the test. Sotomayor dismissed the case in a one-paragraph opinion.

Sotomayor has also been involved in a second-ammendment case and an environmental case. In Maloney v. Cuomo, she sided with a U.S. Court of Appeals opinion that said the 2nd Ammendment does not protect the right to bear arms from being restricted by state governments, as opposed to federal governments.

Interestingly enough, on the pro-life issue she seems to have a silent record. This prompted Bill Donohue of the Catholic Rights League to call for the GOP to confirm her over someone else with a stiffer pro-abortion record. Americans United for Life has stated that Sotomayor, in 17 years on the court, has never decided outright that a law regulating abortion was constitutional. Another pro-life voice, Douglas Johnson of National Right to Life, has called for the Senate to properly vet Sotomayor on whether she believes that Supreme Court justices have the authority to overrule legislative officials on the matter of Roe v. Wade.