Center for Equal Opportunity - CEO Opposes Obama's Supreme Court Pick

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CEO Opposes Obama's Supreme Court Pick

Wednesday, 27 May 2009

Choice of Sotomayor Is "Identity Politics"

(Falls Church, VA) The Center for Equal Opportunity expressed extreme disappointment in President Obama’s announcement today that he was nominating Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

CEO chairman Linda Chavez noted Judge Sotomayor’s joining a recent ruling that the city of New Haven did not violate the civil rights of twenty firefighters when it threw out the promotions they had earned by scoring highest on an exam—on the grounds that too many whites, and not enough African Americans, would be promoted. “President Obama said he wanted someone with empathy and sensitivity,” said Chavez. “But Judge Sotomayor showed no empathy for the firefighters who were denied promotions because they were the wrong color, and President Obama showed no sensitivity in nominating her."”

That decision is now under review before the Supreme Court. CEO had filed amicus briefs urging the Court to take the case and to reverse Judge Sotomayor’s decision.

CEO president and general counsel Roger Clegg agreed. “It’s too bad that President Obama has chosen the occasion of a Supreme Court nomination to embrace identity politics,” he said. “We had hoped for better from him.”

Clegg criticized another opinion by Judge Sotomayor. That litigation involved a number of prison inmates—including, in particular, a convicted double cop killer—claiming a right to vote. Hayden v. Pataki, 449 F.3d 305 (2d Cir. 2006). CEO also filed an amicus brief in that case, successfully arguing against the applicability of the Voting Rights Act to felon voting; Judge Sotomayor disagreed and dissented.

The Center for Equal Opportunity is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational organization that focuses on civil rights, bilingual education, and immigration and assimilation issues.

L-R: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Manhattan D.A. Robert Morganthau , Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, New Haven Firefighters Frank Ricci and Lt. Ben Vargas, attorney Peter N. Kirsanow, and Linda Chavez, chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity are sworn in before testifying on July 16, 2009 on the fourth day of confirmation hearings for US Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Choice of Sotomayor Is "Identity Politics"

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