Sessions Becomes The Subject Of Sotomayor Hearings

The confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor have become, in a small but significant way, a referendum on the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican who took over the post from Pennsylvania Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter, is under intense pressure to land blows on Sotomayor without offending Hispanic voters. It's a tough task, made all the more difficult by Sessions' history of racially insensitive positions and statements.

So far the results have been mixed. Over at Fox News, host Chris Wallace and his co-panelist applauded the Alabaman for his questioning of Sotomayor, in which he honed in on her past statements about race and her role in Ricci v. DeStefano (the New Haven firefighter case). While other GOPers (notably Utah Sen. Orin Hatch) got stuck in the legal weeds, Sessions tried to draw blood, the Fox panel argued.

But Democrats both in and out of government say that is exactly the type of posture they want.

"Sessions spent 30 minutes talking about lines in speeches taken out of context, instead of her 17 years on the bench," said one Democratic operative working on the Sotomayor confirmation. "When Judge Sotomayor tried to reference her work as a judge and her fidelity to the law in her more than 3000 judicial opinions, Sen. Sessions ignored her answers. In fact, in his 30 minutes of questioning, after spending weeks supposedly reviewing her judicial record, Sen. Sessions could only manage to mention one of her actual decisions as a judge."

Certainly, the image of a white southern senator pressing a Hispanic judge on topics of affirmative action carries racial implications that progressives don't mind addressing. Ian Millhiser, a Legal Research Analyst with the Democratic-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund, told the Huffington Post that he was "flabbergasted that conservatives picked someone with a long history of race-based attacks as their point person on the Sotomayor hearing."

In some respects, Sessions' questioning has already become the defining feature of Tuesday's hearing. As CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin argued on air: "What's worth noting about what Jeff Sessions -- the line of questioning, was that being a white man, that's normal. Everybody else has biases and prejudices ... but the white man, they don't have any ethnicity, they don't have any gender, they're just like the normal folks, and I thought that was a little jarring."

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Comments

[ggmome]

The truly sad part about this is that these 'sheets' are being hung out to dry, for all the world to see, still stained and dirty...but will be folded up and put in the closet, and brought out to swing again.

[CaptainVideo]

The reality is that the former party of Abraham Lincoln has morphed into the party of Jefferson Davis.

[Bardmess]

In 1964, Dems passed the Civil Rights Act.

[cobraxus]

the condescending tone of these men along with their hectoring and lecturing is all that will be remembered about these hearings.the republicans know full well she's going to be confirmed.they're just getting their shots in now.

[Siara]

It's like the Republican Party has gone out of it's way to prove that they really ARE the party of bigoted, white, southern men.

[Siara]

It's like the Republican Party is bending over backwards to prove that the cliche about Republicans being bigoted, aging white men from the South is, in fact, accurate

[StillAmused]

It's fascinating how the Repubes always insist on sending out the equivalent of that embarrassing, dr/unk uncle to speak for the family.

The clever, always-devastating "permanent­-fringe-mi­nority" strategy?

[Lou DeLuca]

Watching Jeff Sessions, a man who was rejected by this very committee for "gross insensitivity to racial issues" and the others pontificate, makes me realize how badly we need term limits for these guys.

[Siara]

Term limits aren't the problem. If they elected someone else with Session's attitude it would be just as sad. It's the general attitude that anyone Obama selects is, de facto, evil.

[littleblackcat]

Agreed, with one minor addition, it is only the rethug general attitude. Progressives and other sensible people are grinding our teeth over the ongoing foolishness of the general public about the silence that still greets the rethug obstructionism. The average, everyday person needs to make a few minutes daily or at least a couple of times a week, to email their elected reps to demand an end to it and a getting on with the nation's business.

[BossBabe]

Sotomayor is a conservative's wet dream for a SC judge. They just don't like her because Obama appointed her.

[burt2009]

She's a racist as shown by her own past statements. Lefties wouldn't vote for any one conservatives put up using the same type of remarks.

[yoli647]

Thank you Toobin I agree..

[Phxflyer]

Sessions, as expected, has made a fool of himself.

[kesmarn]

Is anyone else offended by his phony, mincing little smile combined with his tiny, maliciously glittering eyes as he does his hatchet job?

[GreatTruthsSeeker]

I'm sure many, many people around the world are offended by that and what comes out of his mouth. In reality, he is driving in nails into their collective coffin.

Figuaratively speaking about the nails and their collective coffin, of course. However, reality is reality.

[Siara]

LOL. That pretty much sums it up, Phxflyer.

[yoli647]

Puerto Ricans are mixture of blacks from Africa that were brought over from Spain to the Island of Boriquen, (known as Puerto Rico today), Taino indians that were already settled there and the Spaniards from the Country of Spain who brought over the blacks as slaves, so as Puerto Rican we are a very proud people. But Sessions is a racist for his way of questioning Ms. Sotomayor and all the other white Republcans for settling on one line of thought. Sick.

[Larry Knight]

Why do all Republican politicians from the south sound as if they are angry when speaking about issues such as diversity?

Sens. Sessions and Graham spoke with a clear tone of unmistakeable comtempt and disgust.

They want pay back! Why? For 2008? It is without a doubt a sad state of affairs.

And someone PLEASE tell these people to look at her 'wise Latina' comment in the PROPER context!!!!

[Zenfull]

They've been sore losers since 1865 (only then they were Democratic politicians from the South)..

[BenNC]

I think the PROPER context is: that the Supreme Court, unlike the Presidency and Leg. exists to protect the rights of the unpopular; the un-populous - as the other two branches are by definition a reflection of the popular majority. In that context, a person who has experienced first hand the intrinsic disadvantages of being a minority, and the accumulated impact of a thousand banal discriminations - would indeed make a decision which is more in keeping with the purpose of the Supreme Court to protect minorities from the tyranny of the White Male Majority (GOP).

[suec03]

Because they are performing for the reverse discrimination crowd. They don't want to lose the angry white firefighters vote. These conservative Republicans refuse to entertain the possibility that they have been wrong on race, and want us all to believe that racism is over and that we must all think colorblind (white as the norm). They believe to ask for remedies for disparate impact discrimination is invalid and would be reverse discrimination. Never the twain shall meet. They will never entertain the possibility that they are wrong and that subtle racism is embedded in their thinking.

[MadamRoma]

The words smarmy, barf bag, hypocrite, and other assorted negative things, are the "only" things that come to mind when I think of this man.

[hawkseye]

Sam, Learn the difference between home-in-on and hone.

Re the rest of the article: Well done, but please tell us where on earth did Sessions get his law degree?

[sposton]

Republicans at their best self-destructive behavior. Appealing to their nutty base which has nowhere else to go and alienating everyone else. Brilliant!