ISSUE: Lindsey Graham’s vote on Judge Sotomayor

OUR VIEW: Senator makes stand for Senate’s appropriate role

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on Tuesday was the only Republican member of the Judiciary Committee to vote for the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court justice.

Graham said the path of least resistance would have been to vote “no.”

He voted “yes” for the right reasons.

Critics of Sotomayor, including South Carolina’s other U.S. senator, Jim DeMint, claim she should be rejected as far too liberal on issues from gun control to abortion. In battling Sotomayor on such grounds, they are doing exactly what the Democrats did in creating stalemates over federal judgeships during the Bush years.

Graham acknowledges that Sotomayor would not have been his choice for the court. He says had Republican John McCain won the presidency, she would not have been nominated.

“Judge Sotomayor is definitely a more liberal judge than a Republican president would have nominated, but elections have consequences,” Graham said.

It is President Barack Obama’s prerogative to nominate people for judgeships. One would expect that his choices will be more liberal than conservative, just as George W. Bush’s choice were labeled conservatives.

The Senate’s confirmation role is not rejecting a nominee based on politics, it is determining if the person is qualified to be on the court.

In the case of Sotomayor, not even her critics are disputing qualifications. Graham said, “Judge Sotomayor is one of the most qualified nominees to be selected for the Supreme Court in decades.”

Graham, who gained national attention during his questioning of Sotomayor during her confirmation hearings, said he has reviewed the candidate’s record closely.

His analysis: “She follows precedent and has not been an activist judge that would disqualify her from office. She has demonstrated left-of-center reasoning but within the mainstream. ... She has an outstanding background as a lawyer. ... She has received the highest rating of ‘well qualified’ by the American Bar Association for her nomination to the Supreme Court.”

Graham’s stand for Sotomayor is important in emphasizing a return to the “qualification standard” for court nominees.

“I believe the Senate and nation should once again go back to the judicial standard for Supreme Court nominees which served our country well for over 200 years. ... Are the nominees qualified? Do they have good character? Do they present an extraordinary circumstance – having something about their life that would make them extraordinary – to the point they would be unqualified, e.g. they are related to the president or they tried to bribe someone for the position?”

Graham cites previous unanimous and near-unanimous votes for justices from conservative Antonin Scalia to liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

With Scalia, the Senate was “supporting an extremely qualified, talented, intellectual man who was qualified for the job but had a conservative philosophy different from most Democrats.”

With Ginsburg, senators “knew her liberal philosophy but understood that President Clinton had won the election and earned the right to make the nomination.”

Determining that Sotomayor was qualified, Graham is to be commended for a statesman’s vote in her favor.

He defines a senator’s role perfectly: “As a member of the minority party in the Senate, I have a responsibility to look hard at the nominees sent to the Senate by President Obama. Where I can, I will support his nominees. But I will not abandon the right to say no. I will not abandon the right to stop, in an extraordinary circumstance, a nominee who is bad for the country and unworthy of being confirmed. But Judge Sotomayor does not rise to that standard and for that reason I chose to support her nomination.”

You must be logged in to comment.