Barack Obama names Hispanic Sonia Sotomayor as new Supreme Court judge

President Obama has named Sonia Sotomayor, the federal appeals judge, as America’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, a woman with a remarkable personal story that began on a housing project in the south Bronx.



If confirmed by the Senate Judge Sotomayor, 54, whose parents came from Puerto Rico, will also become only the third woman to serve on America’s highest court. Within minutes of the announcement conservatives said that they were preparing to do battle over a judge they accuse of being a liberal activist.

Judge Sotomayor, who was inspired to become a judge after watching the Perry Mason courtroom dramas as a child, had diabetes diagnosed at 8 and lost her father, a factory worker, the following year. She and her brother were raised by their mother, a nurse in a methadone clinic, in the Bronxdale housing project. She graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude in 1976, and from Yale Law School in 1979. She is divorced with no children.

In making the first Supreme Court nomination by a Democratic president in 15 years, Mr Obama has said that the most important quality he was looking for was someone with empathy for ordinary citizens. Announcing his choice in the White House he said: “Even as she has accomplished so much in her life she has never forgotten where she began, never lost touch with the community that supported her. What Sonia will bring to the court is not only the experience acquired over the course of a brilliant legal career but the wisdom accumulated from an inspiring life’s journey.”

Judge Sotomayor said that Mr Obama’s decision to pick her was “the most humbling honour of my life” and that “never in my wildest childhood imaginings did I ever envision this moment”.

Barring an unexpected scandal she is expected to be confirmed by the Senate without a bruising fight, mainly because, faced with a Democratic majority of 59 seats, Republicans will be unable to muster the 60 votes needed to mount a blocking filibuster.If confirmed she will replace David Souter, who is retiring. She will not significantly alter the finely balanced ideological make-up of the court, as he was a reliable liberal.

Yet Judge Sotomayor, a court of appeals judge from New York, has strong critics from both the Left and Right, with conservatives decrying the choice. They are particularly animated by a videotape of Judge Sotomayor, taken during a panel discussion four years ago in which she said, half-joking: “Court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know — and I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don’t make law, I know.” The most provocative thing for conservatives that a judge could say is a claim to make policy from the bench — a breach of the separation of powers under the Constitution.

Wendy Long, of the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, said: “Judge Sotomayor is a liberal activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy.” Mike Huckabee, a 2008 presidential candidate, said: “Sotomayor comes from the far left and will likely leave us with something akin to the ‘Extreme Court’.”

From her 1998 Senate confirmation for the appeals court, 18 Republicans who voted in that process still sit in the upper chamber; 11 voted against her and seven in favour. Yet some will be wary of voting against the Supreme Court’s first Latino. Politically Mr Obama’s pick was shrewd. Hispanics are now America’s biggest minority, and a powerful voting bloc in the new electoral battleground that has opened up in the West.

Some liberals claim that Judge Sotomayor lacks the intellectual clout to take on the court’s conservative heavyweights. Some lawyers who have appeared before her say that she can be a bully. Yet her 17-year record shows a woman with liberal tendencies who is also a pragmatist.