The Hill reports that Senate Republicans will call two special witnesses in the Sotomayor confirmation hearings: Frank Ricci and Ben Vargas, two of the firefighters from New Haven, Connecticut, who recently won at the Supreme Court in their high-profile case.
That case, of course, involved a 5-4 Supreme Court overturning a three-judge appeals panel that included Sotomayor herself, and has become a centerpiece of Republican efforts to portray Sotomayor as biased in favor of minority groups.
After the Ricci decision was handed down, you had to know this kind of shoe would drop. Expect the firefighters to more or less testify that Sotomayor discriminated against them becuase of race, and for the GOP Senators to pitch them the kind of questions that will reinforce the point.
