Supreme Court Hearings Underway

Today is the second day of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing. Yesterday, each member of the Senate Judiciary Committee had the opportunity to deliver an opening statement up to 10 minutes in length. Here’s an excerpt from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s (RI) statement:

“…I believe that your diverse life experience, your broad professional background, your expertise as a judge at each level of the system, will bring you that judgment. As Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. famously said, the life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience.

“If your wide experience brings life to a sense of the difficult circumstances faced by the less powerful among us: the woman shunted around the bank from voicemail to voicemail as she tries to avoid foreclosure for her family; the family struggling to get by in the neighborhood where the police only come with raid jackets on; the couple up late at the kitchen table after the kids are in bed sweating out how to make ends meet that month; the man who believes a little differently, or looks a little different, or thinks things should be different; if you have empathy for those people in this job, you are doing nothing wrong.

“…The courtroom can be the only sanctuary for the little guy when the forces of society are arrayed against him, when proper opinion and elected officialdom will lend him no ear. This is a correct, fitting, and intended function of the judiciary in our constitutional structure, and the empathy President Obama saw in you has a constitutionally proper place in that structure. If everyone on the Court always voted for the prosecution against the defendant, for the corporation against the plaintiffs, and for the government against the condemned, a vital spark of American democracy would be extinguished. A courtroom is supposed to be a place where the status quo can be disrupted, even upended, when the Constitution or laws may require; where the comfortable can sometimes be afflicted and the afflicted find some comfort, all under the stern shelter of the law. It is worth remembering that judges of the United States have shown great courage over the years, courage verging on heroism, in providing that sanctuary of careful attention, what James Bryce called "the cool dry atmosphere of judicial determination," amidst the inflamed passions or invested powers of the day.”

Following the senators’ statements, Judge Sotomayor delivered an opening statement of her own. It’s below, in its entirety. The hearing resumed this morning to begin the first round of questions. Each senator, starting with Chairman Patrick Leahy, continuing with Ranking Member Jeff Sessions and then alternating between Democrats and Republicans, has 30 minutes to query the Judge. The second round of questions (during which senators have 20 minutes each) is expected to begin sometime tomorrow.