California Supreme Court upholds Proposition 8 (which outlawed same-sex marriage in the state) but says that the roughly 18,000 marriages that took place already are still valid.
Whether or not Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic Justice on the Supreme Court she would be the sixth Catholic currently serving on the current Court, which is perhaps best to say quietly extraordinary, given that as recently as few decades ago they were comparatively rare. A recent Pew poll says that 31.4% of U.S. adults say they were raised Catholic and 23.9% consider themselves Catholic. (There was some question about whether Sotomayor was a practicing or lapsed Catholic. But Steve Waldman says she’s practicing.)
And one other factoid. If Sotomayor is confirmed, the Court would have six Roman Catholics, two Jews and one Protestant — and that, the oldest, John Paul Stevens.
(ed.note: This post has some good history of Catholics serving on the Court. For the first Catholic to serve on the Court you’ve got to go all the way back to Chief Justice Roger Taney (appointed by Andrew Jackson). But only 11 Roman Catholics have ever been appointed to the Court — and five of those are currently serving.)
Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton earlier this afternoon on MSNBC …
The President said that he wanted a judge who had empathy and I read empathy to mean bias in favor of politically correct individuals, whether they be women or a gay person or a black or Hispanic. You know that’s the way they should decide in favor of them no matter what the law is.
Norm Coleman sends word that as soon as he’s sworn in he’ll be reviewing Judge Sotomayor’s record and deciding how he’ll vote.
So what to make of the charge from the right that Judge Sotomayor has an allegedly high rate of reversals by the Supreme Court? Fox News’ Major Garrett just raised it with Robert Gibbs at the daily White House press briefing. Here’s the text of exchange (video here):
Garrett: Is a nominee’s history of opinions and reversals a relevant factor for the public and the Senate?
Gibbs: Well, I think it is one of the many factors that likely will be picked over and weighed as we go through this.
Garrett: How does the White House evaluate Judge Sotomayor’s record on this score?
Gibbs: Well, I think if one were to create 380 opinions and have 3 reversed.
Garrett: What’s the Supreme Court ratio?
Gibbs: You tell me.
Garrett: 6 opinions, 3 reversals.
Gibbs: Well, Major, don’t just judge, I wouldn’t judge you on the stories I call you about, I might judge you on the full package of your repertoire. Whether or not you ultimately see fit to change any of the rhetoric on …
Garrett: I am not a nominee for the Supreme Court, let the record reflect.
Gibbs: I would agree with that.
So when outfits like the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network say that Sotomayor has a “terrible record of reversals by the Supreme Court,” what they’re referring to is the narrow and misleading issue of how the Supreme Court has ruled when it has gone so far as to accept the case on appeal. There does not appear to be any sort of unusually high number of her cases making it to the Supreme Court.
Late Update: TPM Reader JH checks in:
About those reversals: It’s worth pointing out that the Supreme Court reverses most of the decisions it takes. The percentage of cases it affirms usually is somewhere in the 25 to 30 percent range, and rarely as high as 40 percent. There’s actually a saying among Supreme Court lawyers that the court grants cert to reverse. In that context, a .500 record is pretty good.
Later Update: Here’s a piece on the Supreme Court reversal rate in recent years that confirms what JH is pointing out.
CNN found it necessary to bring Alberto Gonzales on to reflect on the Sotomayor nomination.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK): “In the months ahead, it will be important for those of us in the U.S. Senate to weigh [Sotomayor’s] qualifications and character as well as her ability to rule fairly without undue influence from her own personal race, gender, or political preferences.”