Hispanic Judge Sonia Sotomayor

Kyl Charting Republican Strategy to Defeat Sotomayor

PHOENIX (From Hispanic News and wire services) July 10, 2009 — For Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, gearing up to defeat the Supreme Court nomination of Hispanic Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a call to arms to stop the growth of Hispanic influence in the United States.

A member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kyl is masterminding the Republican strategy in the upcoming confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor, whom President Barack Obama has nominated to the Supreme Court. The hearings begin Monday.

As the minority party's Republican whip, Kyl will feel partisan pressure from the Republican's conservative base hungry to hand Obama a defeat or embarrassment.

Where Sotomayor supporters see ethnic pride, some Republicans, such as Arizona Sen Kyl, and Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, suspect bias.

They point to conservatives who don't like Sotomayor's statement a "wise Hispanic" might be better equipped to handle some cases than her white male colleagues, and a case where she sided with a majority of appellate court judges in tossing a Connecticut firefighters' test that did not qualify any blacks and few Hispanics for promotion.

Sessions, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, expressed concern last month Sotomayor's "policy preferences could influence her decision-making." Sessions also is questioning Sotomayor's 12 years as a director of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, a group he calls "outside the mainstream."

Sotomayor, a veteran judge on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, would become the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. Kyl represents a Southwestern state where Hispanic voters are a rising force. Nationally, Republican Party officials are hoping to improve their appeal to the growing demographic.

"Kyl is in a tricky position," said Daria Roithmayr, a law professor at the University of Southern California. Roithmayr previously worked on Supreme Court nominations as special counsel to liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., a former longtime Judiciary Committee member, and to a consortium of public-interest groups including the left-leaning People for the American Way.

When President George W. Bush, a Republican, nominated John Roberts for chief justice and Samuel Alito for associate justice of the Supreme Court in 2005, Kyl worked to smooth their confirmations through a Republican-controlled Senate. This time, Kyl must help strategize the minority Republicans response to a Democratic president's choice in a Democrat-dominated Senate.

Neutral for now

Given the Democratic dominance of the Senate, the best the Republicans can hope for with Sotomayor is a spirited hearing, which they intend to use to showcase arguments against judicial activism, said USC's Roithmayr.

Former Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., Kyl's predecessor, spent 18 years on the Judiciary Committee and participated in numerous Supreme Court confirmation hearings. He said he is interested to see how Kyl squares his Republicans whip duties with "what is fair" to Sotomayor. "Does he go with conservative radio commentators Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity or does he go with some of the more moderate Republicans who appear to be supportive of Sotomayor?" DeConcini said.

Hispanics have eye on Republicans senators' Sotomayor vote

Efforts to rivet the attention of the Hispanic community on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings next week could complicate Republicans' political ambitions for next year. The nation's major Spanish-language television networks, Univision and Telemundo, plan beefed-up coverage of the Senate Judiciary Committee's proceedings. All of that creates "a big problem" for Republicans who want to oppose Sotomayor.

Hispanic voters have determined the winner in Florida elections since 2000 and in Nevada since 2004, says Luis Fraga, director of the University of Washington's Diversity Research Institute. He credits divisive debates over immigration with turning Hispanics — who helped elect Bush — away from the Republicans.

Republicans must defend Senate seats next year in three states that, according to 2008 Census Bureau estimates, have high percentages of Hispanics: Arizona (29.6%), Utah (11.6%) and Florida (20.6%).

"There is pride the nominee is a Hispanic," says Estuardo Rodriguez, a director of Hispanics for a Fair Judiciary. The coalition, which includes organizations such as the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, is organizing events in states where the Hispanic population is high and the senators aren't committed to Sotomayor.

Some content from US Today