President Trump is right to call out Justice Sotomayor, and other unelected black robed social justice activist hacks who are masquerading as non-partisan upholders of the rule of law.
Remember when the United States Supreme Court carefully guarded their time-honored independence from the politics of the Executive and Legislative branches? In those days, rarely were they ever seen or heard from outside of rendering opinions, and they kept those decisions based on the law, not politics. Those days are over thanks to judges who believe it is their role to act as a super legislature.
Recently Justice Sotomayor showed her disdain for President Trump in an exercise of judicial activism when in a dissenting opinion in Wolf v. Cook County, she accused the Court of putting a thumb on the scale in favor of the Trump administration by siding more times than not in his favor.
Back in 2001, in a speech given at the University of California School of Law at Berkeley, Sotomayor insinuated that her white male colleagues could not render decisions on people of color or a different gender because they could not relate to them. Sotomayor said: “I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that--it's an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others. Not all women or people of color, in all or some circumstances or indeed in any particular case or circumstance but enough people of color in enough cases, will make a difference in the process of judging.”
Sorry Justice Sotomayor, but that is precisely the definition of judicial activism on behalf of a particular demographic. Need more proof? She further said, “Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and the wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.”
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Excuse me. Let that disgusting racist and sexist comment by a sitting Supreme Court Justice set in for a moment.
What Sotomayor is, in essence, saying is that she does not believe in the application of equal justice or that the law should be blind. She thinks the law should be decided on physical characteristics like color of skin or gender or subjective personal experiences. That is downright dangerous and anathema to the theory of equal justice. That is how Plessy v. Ferguson and the Dred Scott v. Sandford cases were rendered. Those decisions were based not on equal justice but on race, on skin color. There is a reason why our symbol of justice is that of a blindfolded lady holding a balanced scale. Justice is not supposed to see the skin color or gender of the plaintiffs or defendants. Justice Sotomayor apparently believes that Lady Justice should be able to peek out from under the blindfold to get a look at race, gender, or social status before deciding.
Is anybody surprised that now Justice Sotomayor accuses the Court of placing a thumb on the scales of justice because more times than not Trump prevails? Does she consider that the decisions on appeal before her were made by activists lower court judges who like herself make decisions based not on the law and with no respect for precedent but instead based on personal political preferences and anti-Trump bias?
That is what is going on here, and the Court is correct to right the wrong. Sotomayor wants to place her thumb on the scale in favor of identity politics because Wolf v. Cook County was a case involving immigration restrictions affecting not just all migrants but overwhelmingly Hispanic migrants, which any President has the authority to do under the Constitution.
The Robert’s Court has become increasingly political. It is a slippery slope but inevitable in this hyper-partisan political timeframe. Everything today is viewed through the lens of politics, and nothing is immune, not even sacred things like the rule of law. Let’s not kid ourselves. Chief Justice Roberts scolded President Trump recently by reminding him that there are no Obama Judges, Clinton Judges, or Bush Judges, only. Who is he kidding? Yes, there are. These Judges were nominated to their positions based on politics. They are either originalists appointed by Republican Presidents or activist judges appointed by Democrat Presidents. Roberts naively believing that we have an independent judiciary is laughable. He made a political decision in the Obamacare case when he switched his vote from striking down the individual mandate as unconstitutional where government forces people to buy a product i.e., health insurance, to voting for it by rationalizing it as a tax which the government does has the authority to levy.
President Trump is right in calling for Justice’s Sotomayor and Ruth Ginsburg to recuse themselves in cases involving his administration. They have publicly displayed utter contempt for his Constitutionally-based polices, especially involving illegal immigration and securing the border.
Put the figurative blindfold on Justice Sotomayor so that faith in equal justice can once again take its rightful place in our third branch of government. I don’t care about her wise Latina decisions. I only care about the Constitution, the rule of law, and equal justice under it.