On Tuesday, President Obama announced Sonia Sotomayor as his pick to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Sotomayor could be the first Latina appointed to the Supreme Court. Predictably, attacks and slurs from the Right are already flying. Regardless, Sotomayor would be an excellent choice for the Supreme Court, signaling to Latino/as that the White House is aware of our need for more representation in government.
In terms of actual rulings, is it possible to put a figure on how much of an improvement Sonia Sotomayor is likely to be over George Bush's two Supreme Court nominees? Even though predicting the voting tendencies of Supreme Court justices is famed for being difficult, the answer appears to be yes. The best guess is that Sotomayor will rule with progressives about 25-30% more often than a Bush nominee would have done.
My reason for this is taken primarily from the recent voting history of David Souter, who Sonia Sotomayor is replacing. The numbers that follow (taken from Scotus Wiki) depict the widest range of disagreement Souter had with other members of the Supreme Court from 2003-2008.
President Obama will soon announce his nominee to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. It's a critical nomination with long-term ramifications for civil liberties, executive power, management-labor relations, the environment and consumer rights. Hence, it is vital the public know whether the judicial philosophy and ideology of any prospective nominee to the court is compatible with their sensibilities and values. Ideally, all nominees would be forthcoming about their philosophy as the senate either confirms or rejects them with full knowledge of the sort of justice they're likely to be.
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