Confirmation Hearings Have No Impact on Public Views of Sotomayor

[larrymeyer]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/rasmussen/so...earing20090716

Confirmation Hearings Have No Impact on Public Views of Sotomayor


Thu Jul 16, 10:45 am ET
In Washington, D.C., the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor are being endlessly scrutinized, live-blogged and analyzed. But the hearings so far have had virtually no impact on public opinion.

Rasmussen Reports national telephone polling conducted Tuesday and Wednesday night shows that 87% of U.S. voters expect Sotomayor to be confirmed as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court . Thirty-seven percent (37%) favor her confirmation while 41% are opposed.


Those results are essentially the same as the updates provided yesterday and the day before. In fact, the numbers are pretty much unchanged from a survey conducted in late June. This may suggest that the American people have a good understanding of the fact that, barring a major gaffe, the hearings themselves are unlikely to have any impact on the final result.

Forty-seven percent (47%) of voters believe Sotomayor, President Obama's first nominee for the Supreme Court, is politically liberal while 33% say moderate. Forty-three percent (43%) offer a favorable opinion of the nominee while 47% say unfavorable.

Democrats strongly support her while Republicans are strongly opposed. One boost for the nominee is that those who are undecided about her tend to approve of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president.

These findings, too, are largely unchanged over the week as the confirmation hearings have continued.

Rasmussen Reports will continue tracking support for Sotomayor's confirmation on a daily basis during the confirmation hearings. Results will be updated each morning at 10:30 EDT. Premium Members can get an advance look at the daily numbers in the Daily Briefing from Scott Rasmussen.

Republicans have been pressing Sotomayor for an explanation on her appellate court ruling rejecting a reverse discrimination case filed by white New Haven firefighters. That ruling was later reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Eighty-three percent (83%) of voters say the U.S. legal system should apply the law equally to all Americans rather than using the law to help those who have less power and influence.

This national telephone survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports on July 14-15, 2009. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence (see methodology).

Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.

[Gtbullet]

Oh Bullshit! The media is just shoving her down our throats...

[Dredly]

What would have been very interesting is if they also would have included race and sex in the poll.

I have a very strong feeling that this matches the election results pretty closesly.

Latino and Blacks in lock step with the election of the first Latino, great "I grew up in the ghetto and now I'm successful"... just like Obama

Women are also most likely voting for her in a slight majority as another women on the bench looks great for women rights


Republicans and conservatives are against her... but their voice doesn't matter at all.

[larrymeyer]

Sotomayor wins backers after smooth hearings


– 57 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor won her first public pledge of support Friday from the Senate's most senior Republican, after a smooth performance at her confirmation hearings that has placed her firmly on track to become the high court's first Latina and the first Democratic-named justice in 15 years.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., announced that he would vote for Sotomayor, calling her "clearly qualified to serve on the Supreme Court," after four days of Judiciary Committee hearings in which he said she showed "a judicial temperament." Lugar, who previously voted to confirm Sotomayor to her current spot on a federal appeals court, was the first Republicans to voice his support for Sotomayor after her hearings this week.

The only other Republicans to publicly weigh in on Sotomayor's nomination are three of the Senate's staunchest conservatives, Sens. Jim Bunning of Kentucky, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Pat Roberts of Kansas — all of whom have said they intend to vote no on President Barack Obama's first high court choice.

Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who had hinted strongly that he will support Sotomayor, made it official Friday with a statement in which he said he'd vote for her and urge colleagues to do the same.

[B]Sotomayor "displayed intellect, restraint and judicial demeanor" at her hearings, Specter said.[/B]( How would someone with no clue know that)

With Democrats solidly behind Sotomayor, three days of grueling questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee gave Republicans no new ammunition to use against the 55-year-old nominee, who was raised in a South Bronx housing project, educated in the Ivy League, and rose through the legal ranks to spend 17 years on the federal bench.

Now GOP senators are weighing the tricky politics of voting on Sotomayor's confirmation without alienating either their conservative base or Hispanic and women voters.

The GOP's leader at the confirmation hearings, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama has said he has no interest in stopping or even delaying Sotomayor's confirmation vote as the country's 111th Supreme Court justice.

"I look forward to you getting that vote before we recess" on in Aug. 7, said Sessions, despite calls from some conservatives to delay the vote until after the Senate returns in September from its summer break.

"Each senator will make up their own mind," Sessions said.

Sotomayor has overwhelming if not unanimous support among the Senate's 58 Democrats and two independents.

Democrats, sensing a big win, immediately scheduled a committee vote Tuesday, starting the clock on a schedule for a final confirmation vote before the Senate leaves in August for a four-week summer break as well as before the next Supreme Court argument on Sept. 9.

Republicans will likely ask for a weeklong delay before the panel vote, but a unified GOP front against her also seems unlikely, given the praise Sotomayor got from a couple of critics on the Judiciary Committee. Two Republicans, Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, called her judicial record "mainstream."

The underlying politics are dicey for Republicans. They must be careful to keep faith with constituents like National Rifle Association members who oppose her, yet avoid offending the Hispanic voters who represent the fastest-growing segment of the electorate.

Sotomayor's hearings were as much a prelude for future Supreme Court fights as a battle over the judge herself. Republicans criticized Obama's assertion — made before nominating Sotomayor — that he was looking for a justice with "the quality of empathy," and earlier an statement when he was a senator that some decisions depend on what's in a judge's heart.

They also pressed Sotomayor repeatedly on her 2001 statement that she hoped a "wise Latina" would usually rule better than a white male, drawing expressions of regret from the nominee, who said her words were poorly chosen.

Sotomayor parried all their questions on hot-button issues like guns and abortion rights and defended her speeches that have been faulted as showing bias.

She was unequivocal, however, in her statements on what kind of justice she would be. "I do not permit my sympathies, personal views or prejudices to influence the outcome of my cases," she told senators.

Republicans, expressing concern that she would bring bias to the court, gave a speaking role at the hearing to Frank Ricci, a white New Haven, Conn., firefighter whose reverse discrimination claim was rejected by Sotomayor and two other appeals court judges. He complained that the ruling showed a belief "that citizens should be reduced to racial statistics" but declined when given the chance to say Sotomayor's nomination should be rejected.

Her panel's ruling was overturned last month by the Supreme Court she hopes to join.

[larrymeyer]

Maybe this thread should be Democrats say "F*UCK YOU To Their Constituent's"

[ccphilly1984]

Oh Bullshit! The media is just shoving her down our throats...

yeah they are... listen to what the senators are asking and watch the liberal media spin it good.

[DiveGerry]

If I have placed this on the wrong thread, I apologize. However, this was sent to me via the NRA and thought it would be of interest.


Joint Statement

Wayne Lapierre, Executive Vice President, National Rifle Association
And
Chris W. Cox, Executive Director, National Rifle Association - Institute For Legislative Action
On
Judge Sonia Sotomayor's Nomination To The United States Supreme Court


Other than declaring war, neither house of Congress has a more solemn responsibility than the Senate's role in confirming justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. As the Senate considers the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Americans have been watching to see whether this nominee - if confirmed - would respect the Second Amendment or side with those who have declared war on the rights of America's 80 million gun owners.

From the outset, the National Rifle Association has respected the confirmation process and hoped for mainstream answers to bedrock questions. Unfortunately, Judge Sotomayor's judicial record and testimony clearly demonstrate a hostile view of the Second Amendment and the fundamental right of self-defense guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

It is only by ignoring history that any judge can say that the Second Amendment is not a fundamental right and does not apply to the states. The one part of the Bill of Rights that Congress clearly intended to apply to all Americans in passing the Fourteenth Amendment was the Second Amendment. History and congressional debate are clear on this point.

Yet Judge Sotomayor seems to believe that the Second Amendment is limited only to the residents of federal enclaves such as Washington, D.C. and does not protect all Americans living in every corner of this nation. In her Maloney opinion and during the confirmation hearings, she deliberately misread Supreme Court precedent to support her incorrect view.

In last year's historic Heller decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees the individual's right to own firearms and recognizes the inherent right of self-defense. In addition, the Court required lower courts to apply the Twentieth Century cases it has used to incorporate a majority of the Bill of Rights to the States. Yet in her Maloney opinion, Judge Sotomayor dismissed that requirement, mistakenly relying instead on Nineteenth Century jurisprudence to hold that the Second Amendment does not apply to the States.

This nation was founded on a set of fundamental freedoms. Our Constitution does not give us those freedoms - it guarantees and protects them. The right to defend ourselves and our loved ones is one of those. The individual right to keep and bear arms is another. These truths are what define us as Americans. Yet, Judge Sotomayor takes an opposite view, contrary to the views of our Founding Fathers, the Supreme Court, and the vast majority of the American people.

We believe any individual who does not agree that the Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right and who does not respect our God-given right of self-defense should not serve on any court, much less the highest court in the land. Therefore, the National Rifle Association of America opposes the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.