In Case You Missed It – Sen. Cornyn Discusses Judge Sotomayor's Upcoming Nomination Hearing On Fox News Sunday

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In Case You Missed It - Sen. Cornyn Discusses Judge Sotomayor's Upcoming Nomination Hearing On Fox News Sunday

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee and former Texas Supreme Court Justice, was interviewed on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace where he discussed the upcoming nomination hearing of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Excerpts of his remarks are below.

Sen. Cornyn: "I Personally Made The Commitment To Give Her A Fair Hearing, Treat Her With The Dignity We Would Expect Every Nominee To Be Treated":

"I think she'll be given a fair hearing. I personally and all my colleagues have made the commitment to give her a fair hearing, treat her with the dignity we would expect every nominee to be treated, but unfortunately that seems to more be the exception than the rule. But yes, I think she'll have an up or down vote."

Sen. Cornyn On The Democrats' Filibustering Of Miguel Estrada:

"It was unheard of to filibuster judges until our friends on the Democratic side filibustered a number of nominees - and unfortunately a gentleman who might have been the first Hispanic nominee to the United States Supreme Court, Miguel Estrada, who was filibustered seven times and denied an up or down vote. I don't think that will happen to Judge Sotomayor even though that precedent has been now established. I just don't see it happening in this case.

"The reason he was filibustered is because Democrats knew he would likely be the next pick for the United States Supreme Court."

Sen. Cornyn: "We're Going To Talk About Her Judicial Philosophy":

"It's a great American success story to overcome adversity and humble origins. But that's not the sort of questions we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about her judicial philosophy.

"The judge has given a lot of speeches, in addition to her official actions, where she's questioned whether judges can actually be neutral, whether there is such thing as objectivity in the law, which means that judges are affected by their biases. I think that's a fair area to question her about because certainly the rule of law depends on the same rules applying to each one of us no matter our color, our sex or our ethnicity."

Sen. Cornyn On The Ricci Case:

"What's troubling about the outcome in the Ricci case where if Judge Sotomayor had her way that cities would basically deny promotions based on the color of one's skin, including Hispanics like Lieutenant Ben Vargas who will be testifying at the hearing this week, and that's just wrong. That can't be the case.

"But as troubling as the outcome was the way Judge Sotomayor and her fellow judges on that panel sought the sweep the issue under the rug in an unpublished, with the summary order, which was not an opinion. ... It took another judge who heard about the case to call attention to the court and say this can't be true, that these Constitutional arguments about racial quotas are not even being addressed by the court. So that's another component."

Sen. Cornyn On Judge Sotomayor's Wise Latina Comment:

"The problem is you've got to call balls and strikes as a judge and the ethnicity focus - the focus on sex and on race and saying that there may be different outcomes depending who the judge is - is antithetical to the whole idea of the rule of law objective and neutral justice. And that's the reason why this deserves some questions.

"This is not an isolated comment. This was an argued point that she repeated again and again and again. The president said she misspoke. His press secretary said maybe she should have used different words. But this is a point that she was trying to make and has consistently made that in some ways the quality of justice depends on who the judge is. And that just can't be true.

"I think we ought to hope for - certainly aspire to - the equal treatment to people who are similarly situated in court."

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