Sotomayor and being sleepless in Seattle

A combination of reverse jetlag and too many visits to Seattle’s many and varied coffeehouses has resulted in being glued to the late night news shows. The consensus amongst the talking heads, even those on Fox’s far right broadcasts, is that the hearings for Sonia Sotomayor have been a straightforward proces, lacking any real controversy.

It has remained relatively formalised, as has been the case with Bush’s two nominations (albeit after an embarassing withdrawal). Recent nominations have seen judges try to avoid trouble by taking the line that you don’t get any if you don’t say anything. Sotomayor has deflected questions by saying that she would respect precedent, or that the Court’s judgments in the past have been clear. Alternatively she has said that she does not particularly want to discuss the jurisprudence of hypothetical situations.

It is unlikely that she will not be confirmed in the Senate vote since the GOP have been reluctant to go after an Hispanic nominee for fear of alienating a key and growing constituency. Remember, the politics of Latinos are complicated primarily by the fact that they are economically liberal on the one hand (thus trending Democrat) but socially conservative (their position on abortion, for instance, is more closely aligned to the Republicans).

Additionally we have to remember that this is a straight Justice for Justice swap, with one liberal replacing another. This means that there will be no change in the composition of the Court.

Were a liberal be nominated to take the place of a departing conservative, however, we could see political bloodshed.