a day when they are mad at the u.s. they could launch thousands of attacks like this. there are lots of players in the industry. you could have cybercriminals, you could have cybercriminals hired by the government so when we look at places you can find them in europe, you can find a couple of them, a lot in asia and even the u.s.. had in the u.s. it is a little more difficult because we have strong law enforcement so if you commit this kind of crime you will eventually be caught but in russia or china your chances of being caught, as long as you attack places outside, are pretty small. >> guest: how strong is the international effort these days of the law enforcement front to crackdown on these kinds of things? recently there was this case where a bunch of these pbx systems have been broken into and there were links broken up in italy, and it seemed like that was actually quite an interesting law-enforcement

effort between the italians, the u.s. and the philippines so i was just wondering if that is uncommon or increasingly common, how good is that cooperation? ..

>> i thank my two colleagues from new york for the introduction, and i appreciate it, and i know both -- i have known you for sometime judge, you have also introduced a number members of your family, and now the floor is yours,. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i also want to thank senator schumer and gillibrand for their kind introductions. in recent weeks i have had the privilege and pleasure of meeting 89 senators, including all the members of this commitee. each of you has been gracious to me, and i have so much enjoyed meeting you our meetings have given me an illuminating tour of the 50 states, and invaluable insights into the american people. there are countless family members and friends who have done so much over the years to make this day possible.

i am deeply appreciative for their love and support. i want to make one special note of thanks to my mother. i am here as many of you have noticed because of her aspirations and sacrifices for both my brother juan and me. mom, thank you. i am very grateful to the president and humble to be here today as a nominee to the united states supreme court. the progression of my life has been uniquely american. my parents left puerto rico during world war ii, i grew up in modest circumstances in a bronx housing project. my father, a factory worker with a third agreed education passed away when i was nine years onment on her own, my mother raised my brother and me. she taught us that the key to

success in america is a good education, and she set the example. studying alongside my brother and me at our kitchen table so she could become a registered nurse. we worked hard. i poured myself into my studies at cardinal spellman high school, earning scholarships to princeton university and then yale law school, and my brother went on to medical school. our achievements are due to the values we learned as children, and they have continued to guide my lives endeavors. i try to pass on this legacy by serving as a mentor and friend to my many godchildren, and to students of all backgrounds. over the past three decades i have seen our judicial system from a number of different perspectives. as a big-city prosecutor, as a

corporate litigator, as a trial judge, and as an appellate judge. my first job after law was as an assistant district attorney in new york. there i saw children exploited and abused. i felt the pain and suffering of families, torn apart by the needless death of loved ones. i saw and learned the tough job law enforcement has in protecting the public. in my next legal job, i focused on commercial instead of criminal matters. i litigated issues on behalf of national and international businesses. my career as an sad coe capacity inned and my career as a job began when i was pointed by

president george h.w. bush to the united states states district court for the southern district of new york. as a trial judge i did presides over dozens of trials, with perhaps me most famous case being the major league baseball strike in 1995. after six extraordinary years on the district court, i was appointed by president clinton to the united states court of appeals for the second circuit. on that court i have enjoyed the benefit of sharing ideas and perspectives with wonderful colleagues. as we have worked together to resolve the issues before us. i have now served as an appellate judge for over a decade, deciding a wide range of constitutional, statutory and other legal questions. throughout my 17 years on the bench, i have witnessed the human consequences of my

decisions. those decisions have not been made to serve the interests of any one litigant but always to serve the larger interest of impartial justice. in the past month, many senators have asked me about my judicial philosophy. simple. fidelity to the law. the task of a judge is not to make law, it is to apply the law. and it is clear, i believe, that my record in two courts reflect mist rigorous commitment to interpreting the constitution according to its terms, interpreting statutes according to their terms, and congress' intent, and huing faithly to press departments by supreme court and my circuit court in each case i have heard i have

applied the law to the facts as hand. the judgment is enantiwhen the arguments are understood and acknowledged. that is why i generally structure my opinions by setting out what the law requires, and then explaining why a contrary position, sympathetic or not, is accepted or rejected. that is how i seek to strengthen both the rule of law and faith in the impartiality of our judicial system. my personal and professional experiences help me to listen and understand with the law always commanding the result in every case. since president obama announced my nomination in may, i have received letters from people all over this country. many tell a unique story of hope

in spite of struggles. each letter has deeply touched me. each reflects a dream, a belief in the dream that led my parents to come to new york all those years ago. it is our constitution that makes that dream possible, and i now seek the honor of upholing the constitution as a justice on the supreme court. senators, i look forward in the next few days to answering your questions, to having the american people learn more about me, and to being part of a process that reflects the greatness of our constitution and of our nation. thank you all. >> that was judge sonia sotomayor's opening statement at her confirmation hearing today. now that hearing from the beginning. it's three and a half hours.

[inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> get everybody a chance to get in place here.

what we're going to do -- we well have opening statements from members, but -- of course this is, as we all know, the confirmation hearing -- the national nation of judge sotomayor to be a justice to the united states supreme court. judge sotomayor, welcome to the senate judiciary committee. you have been before us twice before when president george h.w. bush nominated you to be district judge when president clinton nominated you as a court of appeals judge. before we begin the opening statements of the senators, i know you have family members here, and i think your -- i don't know if your microphone is on or not. would you be -- would you please

introduce the members of your family. >> if i introduced everybody that is family-like we would be here all morning. >> how about -- -- some day this will be in the archives, this transcript. introduce whomever you would like and we will hold the transcript open for you to add any other names you want. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i will limit myself to just my immediate family. sitting behind me is my brother, juan sotomayor. next to him is my mom, salina sotomayor. next to her is my favorite husband of my mom. next to him is my niece, could i lee, sotomayor, and next to her is my mom, and my sister-in-law, tracy sotomayor, then there's corey conner, corey and conner

sotomayor. and the remainder of that row is filled with godchildren and dear friends. this is my immediate family. >> thank you very much. i remember reading about the marshals being surprised at your swearing in as a district court judge because they had never seen such a large crowd of friends and supporters arrive. what we're going to do is each senator will give a ten minute opening statement. i would hope that all senators would be able be here today. if they're not, then we will have -- they want to give an opening statement they have to come out of their question time tomorrow. senator schumer will give a short opening statement because he is going to reserve some time as a later introduction.

i would note for the record we are considering the nomination of judge sotomayor to be a justice of the united states supreme court. our constitution is interesting in this regard. we have over 300 million americans and only 101 people get a chance to say who is going to be on the supreme court. first and foremost, the president insuring this case president obama, who made the nomination. then 100 senators have to stand in place of automatic 320 million americans and consider the appointment. the president has done his part. he has made an historic nomination. now the senate has to do its part on behalf of the senate people -- on behalf of the american people. president obama often quotes dr. martin luther king, jr.'s insight that the arc of the moral universe is long but it

bends towards justice. each generation of americans has sought that arc toward justice. we have improved upon the foundation of our constitution through the bill of rights, the civil war amendments, the 19th 19th amendments expansion of the right to vote to women, the civil rights and voting right act of 1965 and the 26th 26th extension of the right to vote to young people. these actions have brought progress toward our more perfect union. i believe this nomination can be another step along that path. judge sotomayor's journey to this hearing room is a truly american story. she was raised by her mother, a nurse, in the south bronx. like her mother, sonia sotomayor worked hard. she graduated veil rick -- at the head of her class at

cardinal spellman high school in new york. she's a member of just the third class at princeton university in which women were included. she continued to work hard, including reading classics that were unavailable to her when she was younger, and arranging tutoring to improve her writing. she graduated suma cum laude di. she was awarded the taylor senior pyne prize for scholastic. she was a active member of the yale law school community. upon graduation she chose to serve her community in the new york district attorney's office. i might say, parenthetically, every one of us have had the privilege of being a prosecutor knows what kind of a job that is, how hard it is.

there she prosecuted murders, robberies, assaults, child pornography. first president bush named her to the federal bench in 1992 and she served as a trial judge for six years. president clinton named her to the united states court of appeals for the second circuit where she served for more than ten years. she was confirm each time by a bipartisan senate. she has had more federal court judicial experience than any nominee to the supreme court in nearly 100 years. she is the first nominee in well over a century to be nominated to three different federal judgeships by three different presidents. she is a first nominee in 50 years to be nominateed to the supreme court after severing as both a federal trial judge and federal appellate judge. she will be the only current

supreme court justice to have served as a trial judge. she is a prosecutor and a lawyer in private practice. she brings a wealth and diversity of experience to the court. i hope all americans are encouraged by george -- judge sotomayor's achievements and by her nomination to the nation's highest court. hers is a success story in which all, all persons can take pride. those who -- thurgoo sat on the united states court of appeals for the second circuit. he served as the nation's top lawyer. the solicitor general of the united states. he won a remarkable 289 out -- 29 out of 32 cases before the supreme court, but despite all these qualifications and achievement, when he was before the senate for his confirmation,

he was asked questions designed to embarrass him, questions such as, are you prejudice against the white people of the south? i hope that's a time of our past. confirmation of united states louis brandeis, the first jewish american, with charges he was a radical. the commentary included questions about the jewish mind. likewise, the first catholic nominee has to overcome the argue. he would be dominated by the pope. we're in a different era. and i would trust that all members of this committee here today will reject the efforts of partisans and out pressure grounds who sought to create a character that judge sotomayor.

this extraordinary woman, her understanding of the constitutional duty she is faithfully performed for the last 17 years, and i hope all senators would join together as we did when we considered president reagan's nomination of sandra day o'connor to serve on the supreme court. every democrat and every republican voted to confirm her. this hearings an opportunity for americans to see and hear judge sotomayor for themselves and to consider her qualifications, and it's the most transparent confirmation hearing ever held. her decisions and confirmation materials have been posted online and made publicly available. the record is significantly more complete than that available when we considered president bush's nomination of john roberts and samuel alito just a few years ago. the judge's testimony will be carried live on television and

web cast, something that i have set up for the judiciary committee web site. she is has a deep respect for judicial precedent and for the powers the other branches of the government, including the lawmaking role of the congress. and that is concluded by a number of studies made of her record. it shines through in a comprehensive view of her tough and fair record in criminal cases. she has a deep understanding of the real lives of americans and the duty of law enforcement to help keep americans safe, and the responsibility of all of us to respect the freedoms that define america. now, unfortunately, someone have sought to twist her words and engage in bipartisan attacks. pressure groups began attacking her even before the president

made his selection. they then extend up their attacks by threatening republican senators who do not oppose her. that's not the american way and that should not be the senate way. in truth we do not have to speculate what kind of justice she will be because we can see what kind of judge she has been. she is a judge which all americans can have confidence. she has been jacques for -- judge for all americans. she will be a justice for all americans. a ranking republican senator on this committee reflected on her confirmation process recently saying what i found was the charges from right and left are unsupported and false. it's very, very difficult for a nominee to push back. so i think we have a high responsibility to base any criticisms with have on a fair and honest statement of the facts and that nominee should not be subjected to distortions of their records. i agree with senator sessions. let no one distort the judge's

record. let's be fair to her and he american people by not misrepresenting her views. we're a country bound together by our magnificent constitution. it guarantees the promises that our country will be a country based on the rule of law, and our service as a federal judge, sonia sotomayor has kept that promise. she understands they're not one law for one race or another, not one law for one color or another, not one law for rich and a different one for poor. there's only one law, and judge, i remember so well you sat in my office and you said that ultimately and completely a judge has to follow the law no matter what their upbringing has been. that's the kind of fair and impartial judge the american people respect. respect for the rule of law

enforcement that's the kind of judge judge sotomayor has been. the kind of fear and impartial justice she will be. the american people deserve. judge sotomayor has been nominated to replace justice souter's whose retirement has left the court with eight justices, united states souter served the nation with distinction for two decades on the supreme court, with admiration for the law and understanding of the immigrant pact of the court's decisions on the daily lives of ordinary americans. i believe that judge sotomayor will be in the same mold, will serve as a justice in the manner of dave day day, committed to law and not to ideology. the weeks and months leading up to this hearing i heard president and senators on both sides of the aisle make reference to engraving over the entrance to the supreme court. i look at that everytime i go up there. it's carved in vermont marble

and says, equal justice under the law. judge sotomayor's nomination keeps faith to those words. senator sessions. >> thank you for your leadership, and i believe you set up some rules for conducting of this hearing that are consistent with past hearings and allow to us do our work together, and i enjoyed working with you on this process. i hope this will be viewed as the best hearing thisee ever had. why not. so i join chairman leahy in welcoming you here today and it marks an important milestone in your life. i know your family is proud, and rightly so, and it's a pleasure to have them with us today. i expect this hearing and resulting debate will be characterized by respectful tone, discussion of serious issues, a thoughtful dialogue and maybe some disagreements. we have worked hard to set that tone from the beginning. i have been an active litigator in federal courts.

i have tried cases as a federal prosecutor, and as attorney general of alabama. the constitution and our great heritage of law, i care deeply about. they're the foundation of our liberty and our prosperity and this nomination is critical for two important reasons. first, justices on the supreme court have great responsibility, hold enormous power and have a lime your appointment. ... mired around the world where a judge as part -- in partially applied the law. this is the compassionate system.

courts do not@@@@@@@ @ rr port and that i will -- to and the pork, and i will discharge and perform the jobs all the duties incumbent upon me under the constitution and laws of the united states, so help me god. these principles give the traditional system its moral authority, which is why americans respect and accept the ruling of courts even when they disagree. indeed our legal system is based on a firm belief in an ordered universe and objective truth. the trial is the process by which the impartial and wise

judge guides us to the truth. on the other-- down the other path lies a great new world where words have the true meaning and judges are free to decide what facts they choose to see. in this world a judges free to push his or her own political, social agenda. i reject that view and americans reject that the. we have seen federal judges force their political and social agenda on the nation, dictating that the words under god be removed from the pledge of allegiance and barring students from even private, even silent prayer in schools. judges have dismissed the people's right to their property to, saying the government can take the person's home for the purpose of developing a private shopping center. judges have, contrary to longstanding rules of war, created a right for terrorist captured on the foreign battlefields to sue the united states government had in our own country.

judges have sighted far in love, world opinion and the united nations resolution to determine that a state death penalty law was unconstitutional. i am afraid our system will only be further corrupted i have to say as a result of president obama's views that in tough cases the critical ingredient for a judge is "the depth and breadth of one's empathy." as will's his words, "back there are broader vision of what america should be. like the american people i have watched this process for a number of years and i fear that this empathies standard is another step down a road to a liberal activist, results oriented, relativistic world where loss lose their fixed meaning, the unelected judges the policy and americans are seen as members of separate groups rather than simply americans, where the

constitutional limits on government power are ignored and politicians want to buy out private companies. so, we have reached a fork in the road i think and there are stark differences. i want to be clear, i will not vote for in no senator should vote for an individual nominated by any president who is not fully committed to fairness and impartiality toward every person who appears before them. i will not vote for and no senator should vote for an individual nominated by any president who believes it is acceptable for a judge to allow their personal background, gender, prejudices or sympathies to sway their decision in favor of or against the parties before the court. in my view such a philosophy is disqualifying. such an approach to judging means that the umpire calling the game is not mutual but instead feels empowered to favor one team over another.

call it the empathy, call it predjudice or call it simply but whenever this is not law burgoine truth it is more akin to politics and politics has no place in the courtroom. some will respond judge sotomayor would never say it is acceptable for a judge to display prejudice in a case but i regret to say judge that some of your statements that i will outline seem to say that clearly. let's look it just a few examples. we have seen the video of the duke university panel, where judge sotomayor says, it is the court of appeals where policy is made and i know, i know, this is on tape and i should never say that, and should not think that. during a speech 15 years ago, judge sotomayor said, i willingly accept the judge must not denied the resulting

experience in heritage but attempt continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate. in that same speech, she said "my experiences will affect the facts i choose to seek." having tried a lot of cases, that particular phrase bothered me. i expect every judge to seat all the facts i think it is noteworthy that when i asked about judge sotomayor's now famous statement that he would come to a better conclusion than others. white's press the kateri robert gibbs and supreme court justice ginsburg claim to defend the substance of those remarks. the aegis shammed the nominee misspoke, but i don't think the nominee did misspeak. she is on record as making the statement at least five times over the course of a decade. i am providing a copy of the

full text of those speeches for the record. others will say that despite the statements we should look to it nominee's record which they characterize as moderate. people's said the same of justice ginsburg, who was not considered to be one of the most activist members of the supreme court in history. some senators ignore justice ginsburg's philosophy and focused on the judicial opinions, but that is not a good test because those cases when necessarily restrained by a precedent and the threat of reversal from prior courts. on the supreme court, those checks on judicial power will be removed and the judge's philosophy will be allowed to reach full bloom. but, even as the lower court to judge how our nominee has made some troubled rulings. i am concerned about their ricci and new haven firefighters case recently reversed by the supreme court where she agreed with the

city of new haven's decision to change the promotion roles in the middle of the game. incredibly her opinion consisted of one substantive panter cafta of analysis. justice sotomayor has said she accepts that her opinions, simply send prejudices will affect her rulings. could it be better time as a leader in the legal defense and education fund on fine organization provides a clue to her decision against the firefighters? while the nominee was chair of that funds litigation committee, the organization addressed pursued racial quotas and city hiring and in numerous cases to overturn the results of promotion exams. it seems to me that in ricci, judge sotomayor's sympathy for one group turned out to be prejudiced against another. that is of course the logical flaw in the empathies standard. empathy for one party is always

prejudiced against another. judge sotomayor, we will inquire into how your philosophy which allows objective of the and the courtroom affects your decision-making. for example an abortion, where an organization of which you were an active leader argued that the constitution requires taxpayer money to fund abortions and gun control for your recently noted that 2nd amendment does not prevent a city or state from barring gun ownership. private property, where you ruled recently that the government could take property from one pharmacy developer and give it to another. capital punishment were you personally signed a statement opposing the reinstatement of the death penalty in new york because of the in human psychological burden it places on the offender and the family. so, i hope the american people will follow these hearings closely and they should learn about the issues and listen to both sides of the argument, and

at the end of the hearing, if i must one day go to court, what kind of judge do i wish to hear my case? do i want a judge that allows his or her social, political or religious views to change the outcome or do i want a judge that impartially applies the law to the facts and fairly rules on the merits without bias or prejudice? is our job to determine which side of that fundamental divide the nominee stands. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you. and other housekeeping thing, we are going to try to keep these statements to ten minutes. we will recognize senators on the democratic side based on seniority. i have told senator sessions, whoever on your side will be recognized on your side. the next senator, senator

pulver. >> judge sotomayor, let me also extend my welcome to you and your family. if you are to be congratulated on your nomination. your nomination as a reflection of who we are as a country and represents the american success story that we all can be proud of. your endemic and professional accomplishments as prosecutor, a private practitioner, the trial judge in appellate judge are exemplary and as they judge you have brought a richness of experience to the bench and to the judiciary which has been an inspiration for so many. today we begin a process to which the senate engages in its constitutional role to a fisa and consent on your nomination. this week's hearing is the only opportunity we and the american people will have to learn about your judicial philosophy, your temperament and your motivation before you put on the black robe and are heard from only in your opinions. the president has asked us to

entrusting with an immense amount of power. power which by design is free from political constraints, unchecked by the people and unaccountable to congress except in the most extreme circumstances. our democracy, our rights and everything we hold dear about america are built on the foundation of our constitution. for more than 200 years, the court has interpreted the meaning of the constitution and in so doing guarantee their most cherished rights. their right to equal education, regardless of race, the right to an attorney and a failed-- fair trial, the right to personal privacy, the right to speak, boat and worship without interference from the government. should you be confirmed you and your colleagues will decide the future scope of our rights and the breadth of our freedoms. your decisions will shape the fabric of american society for many years to come.

and that is why it is so unfortunate over the course of the next few days we gain a good understanding of what is in your heart and in your mind. we don't have a right to know in advance how you will rule on cases which will come before you, but we need and we deserve to know what you think about fundamental issues such as civil rights, privacy and property rights, the separation of church and state and civil liberties just to name a few. some believe the confirmation process has become fairly scripted and that nominees are far too careful in cloaking their answers to important questions in generalities and with caveat about future cases. i recognize this concern but i also hope you recognize our need to have a frank discussion about these important issues. these are not as concepts for law books. they are issues americans care about. as qaim play serc communities misnavigate the balance between

individual rights and the duty of law enforcement to protect and maintain order. as family struggle to make ends meet in these difficult times, we question the promisable role for government in helping get the economy back on track. as we continue to strive for equal rights in our schools and workplaces, we debate the tensions between the admissions policies and hiring practices that they acknowledged diversity and those that attempts to be colorblind. these issues and by all americans to struggle with the dilemmas of democracy and the great questions of our constitution. if we discuss them with candor, i believe we will have a conversation that the american people will profit upon. when considering supreme court nominees over the years i have judged each one with the test of judicial excellence. first judicial excellence means, and a comic character and temperament we expect of a supreme court justice. he or she must have a keen

understanding of the law and the ability to explain it in ways that both the lincoln's and the american people will understand and respect even if they disagree with the outcome. i look for nominee to have a sense of values which form the core of our economic system. no one including the president has the right to require ideological purity from a member of the supreme court. but we do have a right to require that the nominee accept both the principles of the constitution and its core values in society. third, we want a nominee with a sense of compassion. this is a quality i consider with the last six supreme court justices. compassion does not mean bias or lack of impartiality. it is a-that the laws more than an intellectual game in more than a mental exercise. as justice black said, "the course stand against any winds that blow as havens of refuge for those that might otherwise

suffer because they are helpless, week out numbered or because they are nonconforming victims of prejudice and public excitement. a supreme court justice must be able to recognize that real people with real problems are affected by the decisions rendered by the court. they must have a connection with and an understanding of the problems that people struggle with on a daily basis. for justices after all may be blind but it should not be tough. as justice thomas told us in his confirmation hearing, it is important that a justice "can walk in the shoes of the people who are affected by what the court does less "i believe this body for president obama intended when he said he wanted a nominee with an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live. some critics are concerned that your background well in a properly ampac your decision-making. but it is impossible for any buzz to remove ourselves from our life story with all the

twists and turns that make us who we are. as you have a knowledge, my experience in life goal unquestionably shaped my attitudes and i hope that we on this committee can appreciate and relate for ourselves what you say next, but i am cognizant enough that mine is not the only experience. you will have an opportunity before this committee to assure is that your life experiences will impact but not overwhelm your duty to follow the law in the constitution. after your confirmation to the court of appeals in 1998, you said about the discussions of your confirmation hearing, so long as people of goodwill are participating in the process and attempting to be balanced in their approach, then the system will remain healthy. i hope our process will include a healthy level of balance in respect of debate and i look forward to the opportunity to learn more about you and what sort of justice you aspire to be.

thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you senator cole. senator hatch, also former chairman of this committee. >> judge, welcome to you and your good family. grateful to have all of you here. this is the 12 hearing for a supreme court domination in which i a participated and i am instructed day as it was the first time by the seriousness of our responsibility and its impact on america. i am confident under this committees leadership from both you and mr. chairman and the distinguished ranking member this hearing will be both respectful and said stana. judge sotomayor comes to this committee for the third time having served in the first two levels of the federal judiciary and now been nominated to the third. she has a compelling life story and a strong record of educational and professional achievement. her nomination speech to the opportunities that america today provides for men and women have different backgrounds and heritage. the liberty we enjoyed in

america makes these opportunities possible and requires our best efforts to protect that liberty. our liberty brass on the foundation of a written constitution that limits in separate government power, self-government by the people and the rule of law. those principles define the kind of judge our liberty requires. they define the role of judges they play in our system of government. i described my basic approach to the judicial confirmation process in more detail elsewhere so i ask unanimous consent my article published this year in the harvard journal of law and public policy is the playbook for judicial selection be placed in the record mr. chairman, if i can. my approach includes three elements. first, the senate owes some deference to the president's qualified nominees. second, a judicial nominees qualifications include not only legal experience but more importantly judicial philosophy.

biphetamine and nominee's understanding of the power in proper role of judges in our system of government. third, this standard must be applied to the nominees entire record. i have also found guidance from what may seem to be an unusual source for the one june 8, 2005 then senator barack obama explained his opposition to the appeals court nomination janice rogers brown, an african-american woman with a compelling life story who then served as the justice on the california supreme court. senator obama made three arguments that i find relevant today. first, he argued that the test of a qualified judicial nominee is whether she could set aside her personal views and his he put it, "to decide each case on the facts and the merits alone class "that is what our founders intended. judicial decisions ultimately have to be based on evidence. they have to be based on precedent and on law."

second, senator obama abstentious luby reviewed the speech of the court for clues about what he called her overreaching judicial philosophy. there is even more reason to do so today and this is after all a nomination to the supreme court to the united states of america. judge sotomayor motes change the gary precedence vetted the binder as a circuit court of appeals judge. in other words, the judicial position to which she has been nominated is quite different than the judicial position sheed now occupies. this makes evidence outside of her appeals court decisions regarding her approach to judging more, not less important. judge sotomayor has obviously thought, spoken and written much on these issues and i think we show respect to her by taking her entire record seriously. third, senator obama's said

while the nominee's race, gender and life story are important they cannot distract from the fundamental focus on the kind of judge she will be. he said, as i have said today, that we should all be grateful for the opportunity that our liberty affords for americans of different backgrounds. we should applaud judge sotomayor's achievements in service to our community, her profession and the country. senator obama called it "offensive fincen mickle hun "to suggest in nominees research and could give her a pass for substantive use. he proved it by voting twice to filibuster judge janice roger brown's nomination against the confirmation. i shared his hope that we have arrived at a point in our country's history where an individual can be examined and even criticized for their cues no matter what their race or gender. with the standage rapport pruitt when senator obama oppose republican nominees they should be appropriate now the president

obama is choosing his own nominees. today president obama says personal empathy is an ingredient in judicial decisions. today we urge judge sotomayor speeches and focus on her judicial-- which are extensive. i do not believe we should do just that. i wish that other current standards be applied to the past nominees. democratic senators for example offered judge sotomayor's that she has agreed with her republican appointed colleagues 95% of the time. joined by then for which i congratulate her, joined by senator obama however many of the same democratic senators voted against justice samuel alito's confirmation even though he voted with his democrat appointed third circuit colleagues 99% of the time. during a much longer appeals court career and although

justice alito also receive the aviate's highest rating senator obey ahmed joined democrats in voting to filibuster his nomination. then he joined 43 democrats in voting against the confirmation of now justice alito. in fact, senator obama never voted to confirm the supreme court justice. even voted against the man who'd mr. the oath a presidential office, chief justice john roberts, a distinguished and well qualified nominee. if a compelling life story, academic and professional excellence in a top aba rating make a convincing confirmation case mckeel a straw that would be a u.s. circuit judge today. he is a brilliant come universally respected lawyer, one of the top supreme court practitioners in america but he was fiercely opposed by groups and repeatedly filibustered by democrats senators, the ones who today say the same factors should count in judge

sotomayor's favor. whether eidbo four against judge sotomayor it will be by applying the principles i have laid out. judicial appointments have become increasingly contentious. some of the things that have been said about judge sotomayor have been intemperate and unfair. there are no newspaper reports of left-wing groups specifically the extreme left people for the american way are engaged in a smear campaign against the plaintiff and one for more controversial cases. the men who will be testifying here later in the week. if that is true, and i hope it is not, it is beneath both content and the dignity that this process or cummins but there must be a vigorous debate about the kind of judge american needs because nothing less than our liberty is at stake. most judges set aside or may judges consider their personal

feelings in deciding cases? is judicial impartiality h2b orin option? this the fact that judicial decisions affect so many people's lives require judges to be objective and impartial or does it allow them to be subjective than sympathetic? judge sotomayor's nomination raises things and issues. i look forward to a respectful and energetic debate. the confirmation process in general, and this hearing in particular, must be dignified and thorough. there are very different and strongly held views about the issues we will explore, in particular the role that judges should play in our system of government. the task before us is to determine whether judge sonia sotomayor has qualified by legal experience and especially by judicial philosophy to sit on the supreme court of the united states of america. doing so requires examining her entire record, her speeches and articles as well as our judicial

decisions. if we must at the same time be thankful for the opportunity represented by judge sotomayor's nomination and focused squarely on whether she will be the kind of judge required by the very liberty that makes that opportunity possible. judge, i am proud of you and i wish you well. this will be an interesting experience and i expect you to be treated with dignity and respect rail. >> i yield to the chair of the senate intelligence committee, senator feinstein. >> good morning judge sotomayor. monta congratulate you on your nomination and i also want to start out with a couple of personal words. your nomination idea with a great sense of personal pride. you are indeed a very special woman. you have overcome adversity and disadvantage.

you have grown in strength and determination and you have achieved respect and admiration for what has been a brilliant legal and judicial career. if confirmed, he will join the supreme court with more federal judicial experience than any justice in the past 100 years and you bring with you 29 and a half years of the varied legal experience to the court. by this standard, if you are well qualified. in your 11 years as a federal appellate court judge, you have participated in 3,000 appeals and authored roughly 400 published opinions. in your six years on the federal district court, he were the trial judge in approximately 450 cases. for four and one-half years to prosecute crimes as an assistant d.a. in new york city and he spent eight years litigating

business cases at a new york law firm. what is unique about this broad experience is that you have seen the locher lead from all sides. on the district court you saw first-hand the actual impact of the lot on people before you in both civil and criminal cases. you considered, wrote and joined thousands of opinions clarifying the law in reviewing district court decisions in your time on the appellate court. your 11 years there where a rigorous training ground for the supreme court. it is a very unique for a judge to have both levels of federal court experience and you will be the only one on the current supreme court with this background. you are a prosecutor who tried murder, robbery and child pornography cases, so you know first-hand the impact of crime on a major metropolis, and you

have a minister justice in the close and personal forum of a trial court. you also possess a wealth of knowledge and the complicated arena of business law with its contract disputes, patent and copyright issues and antitrust questions and as an associate and partner at a private law firm, you have tried complex civil cases in the areas of real estate, banking and contract law as well as intellectual property, which i am told was a specialty of yours. so, you bring a deep and broad experience in the law to the supreme court. in my nearly 17 years on this committee i have held certain qualities that a supreme court nominee must possess. first, broad and relevant experience. you satisfied that. second, a strong and deep knowledge of the law and

constitution. you satisfied that. third, a firm commitment to following the law and you have and all of these statistics indicate that. next, a judicial temperament and integrity and you have both of those. finally, mainstream legal reasoning. there is everything in your record to indicate-- >> the police will remove them in. let me make very clear, there will be no outbursts allowed in this committee either for or against the nominee, either for or against any position that senator sessions or i or any other senator will have. this is a hearing of the united states senate and we will have border and we will have decorum. there are people who want to have this hearing and in fairness of judge sotomayor, it

will be done orderly. and i will direct the police to remove anybody who does any kind of an outburst either for or against the nominee, either for or against any member of this committee. thank you mr. chairman for your firm words and i support you 100%. >> thank you, and the record will show my comments outside of senator feinstein's comments and i yield back to her. >> thank you mr. chairman. bottom line i believe your record indicates you possess all of these qualities. over the past years of my service on this committee i found it increasingly difficult to know from answers to questions we ask from this dais kalei dominique well actually act as the supreme court justice because the answers here are often in direct and increasingly

couched in euphemistic phrase is. for example, nominees have often responded to specific questions with phrases like, i have an open mind or yes, that is precedent in title to risbeck, or i have no quarrel with that. of course, these phrases obfuscate and prevent a clear understanding of where a nominee really stands. for example, several past nominees have been asked about the casey decision, where the court held that the government cannot restrict access to abortions that are medically necessary to preserve a woman's health. some nominees responded by assuring that wrote and casey were precedence of the course entitled to great respect and in one of the hearings, for questioning by senator specter, this line of cases was the acknowledged to have created a super precedence but once on the court, the same nominees voted

to overturn the key holding in casey that laws restricting a woman's medical care must contain an exception to protect her health. their decision did not comport with the answers they gave here and it is regarded stare decisis and the precedence established in. [roll call] , and ashcroft, in casey, in thornburg, an carhart wine and and i yoest so super president one of the window and women lost a fundamental constitutional protection that had existed for 36 years. also, it showed me that supreme court justices are much more than umpires calling and strikes, and that the word activist is often used only to describe the opinions of one side. as a matter of fact in just two years, these same nominees have

either disregarded or overturn precedence in at least eight other cases. the case involving assignments to attain a racial diversity in school assignments, a case overruling 70 years of precedent on the 2nd amendment and federal gun control law, a case which increase the burden of proof on older workers to prove age discrimination, a case overturning a 1911 decision to allow manufacturers to set minimum prices for their products, a case overruled in two cases from the 1960's on time limits for filing criminal appeals, a case reversing precedence on the sixth amendment right to counsel, a case of returning a prior ruling on regulation of the issue at relating to political campaigns. in the case regarding the prior law in creating a new standard that limits when cities can replace civil service exams that

they may believe have discriminated against a group of workers. so, i do not believe that supreme court justices are merely umpires calling and strikes. rather, i believe that they make the decisions of individuals who bring to the court their own experiences and philosophies. judge sotomayor, i believe you are a warm and intelligent woman. i believe you are well steadied and experience in the law. with some 17 years of federal court experience in building 3,000 appeals and 450 trial cases. so, i believe you too will bring your experiences and philosophy to this highest court and i believe that will do only one thing, and that is strengthen this high institution of our

great country. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you senator feinstein and senator grassley. >> thank you very much. congratulations on your nomination to be associate justice and welcome to the judiciary committee, and a warm welcome to you and your family and friends. they are all very proud of you and rightly so. you have a distinguished legal and judicial record. no doubt it is one that we would expect that any individual nominated to the supreme court. you made your start from very humble beginnings. you overcame substantial obstacles then went on to excel at some of the nation's top schools. you became an assistant district attorney and successful private practice attorney in new york city. you have been on the federal

branch as the district court of appellate court judge since 1992. these are all very impressive legal accomplishments, which certainly qualify you to be on the supreme court. however, and oppressively go record and superior intellect and not the only criteria that we on this committee have to consider. to be truly qualified the nominee must understand the proper role of a judge in society. that is, we want to be absolutely certain that the nominee will faithfully interpret the law and the constitution without bias or prejudice. this is the most critical qualification of a supreme court justice, the capacity to set aside in one own feeling so that he or she can blindly and dispassionately it minister equal justice for all. so, the senate has a

constitutional responsibility of a fights consent, to confirm intelligence experience individuals anchored in the constitution, not individuals who were pursue personal and political agendas from the bench. judge sotomayor, queue where nominated to the highest court of the land, which has the final say on the law. as such, it is even more important for the senate to ascertain whether you can resist the temptations to hold the constitution to your own personal beliefs and practices. it is even more important for the senate to ascertain whether you can dispense justice without bias or prejudice. supreme court justices said on the highest court in a land so that they aren't as constrained, to follow precedent to the same extent as district and circuit judges. there is the proper role of a judge in our system of limited

government and checks and balances. our democratic system of government demands that judges not take on the role of policymakers. that is the role properly preserved to legislators who can be voted out of office if people don't like what they legislate, unlike judges not being voted out of office. the supreme court is meant to be a legal institution, not a political one but some individuals or groups don't see it that way. they see the supreme court is ground zero for their political and social battles. they want justice is to implement their political and social agenda through the judicial process. that is not what our great american tradition envisioned. those battles are properly fought in our branch of government, the legislative branch. so it is incredibly important that we get it right and confirm

the right kind of person for the supreme court. the supreme court nominees should respect the constitutional separation of power. they should understand that the touched on of being a good judge is the exercise of judicial restraint. good judges understand that their job is not to impose their own personal opinions of right and wrong. they know their job is to say what the lot is rather than what they personally think that it ought to be. good judges understand that they must meticulously applied the law and the constitution, even if the results they reach are unpopular. good judges know that the constitutional law constraints and judges every bit as much as they constrain legislators, executives and our whole citizenry. good judges not only understand these fundamental principles,

they live and breed them. president obama said that he would nominate judges based on their ability to empathize in general and with certain groups in particular. this empathy standard is troubling to me. in fact i am concerned that judging based on empathy is really just legislating from the bench. the constitution requires that judges be free from personal politics, feelings and preferences. president obama's empathies standard appears to encourage judges to make use of their personal politics, the feelings and preferences. this is contrary to what most of us understand to be the world of the judiciary copresident obama clearly believes that the measure up to his in but the standard. that worries me. i have reviewed your record and have concerns about your judicial philosophy.

for example in one speech you doubted a judge could never be truly impartial. in another speech you argued that it is a disservice both to law and society for judges that disregard personal views shaped by once "differences as a woman or man of color" and yet another speech to proclaim the court of appeals is where policy is made. your wise latino cummins starkly contradicts a statement by justice o'connor that a wise old man and a wise old women would eventually reach the same conclusion in a case. these statements go directly to your views of how a judge should use his or her background and experience when deciding cases. unfortunately, i fear they don't comport with what i and many others believe is the proper role of a judge or inappropriate judicial method. the american legal system requires that judges check their

biases, personal preferences and politics at the door of the court house. lady justice stands before the supreme court holding the scales of justice. just like lady justice, judges and justices must wear a blindfold when they interpret the constitution and its minister justice. i will be asking you about your ability to wear that judicial blindfold and it will be asking you about your ability to decide cases in an impartial manner in accordance with the law and the constitution. i will be asking you about your philosophy, with do you allow biases and personal preferences to dictate your judicial methods. finally come month aurigae lead the supreme court should not be made up of men and women who were on the side of one special group or issue. brad of the supreme court should be made up of men and women who were on the side of law and constitution.

i am looking to support a restrained jurists committed to the rule of law and the constitution. i am not looking to support a creative jurist who will allow his or her background and personal preferences to decide cases. the senate needs to do its job and conduct a comprehensive and careful review of your record and qualifications. you were nominated to a lifetime position on the highest court. the senate has a tremendous responsibility to confirm an individual who has superior intellectual abilities, legal expertise and in even judicial demeanor and tempore. the above all we have a tremendous responsibility to confirm an individual who truly understands the proper role of a justice. i will be asking questions about your judicial qualifications. however like all of my colleagues i am committed to giving you a fair and respectful hearing as is appropriate for supreme court nominees. i congratulate you once again.

>> thank you senator grassley and senator feingold i will yield to you. >> i too want to welcome and congratulate you judge sotomayor. i greatly by your accomplishments and your record of public service and let me also thank you in advance for the long week you are about to spend in this room. the supreme court plays a unique and center world in the lifeblood of our nation. does is it as justices have the most intimate aspects of the lives of american citizens and therefore it is not surprising of all the nomination and confirmation of the supreme court justice is such a widely anticipated and widely covered event. the nine men and women who sat on the court have been enormous responsibility and those of us attach with voting on the confirmation have a significant responsibility as well. this is clearly one of the most consequential things that one does as the united states senator and i am honored and

humbled to be given this world by the people of wisconsin. the ultimate responsibility of the supreme court is to safeguard the rule of law which defines us as a nation and protect us all. in the past eight years, the supreme court has played a crucial role in checking some of the previous administration's most egregious departures from the rule of law. time after time in cases arising out of actions taken by the administration after september 11, the court has said no, you have gone too far to it said the to the bush administration's view that it could set up lafree zone at guantanamo bay. it said no to the administrations view that the hold a citizen in the united states incommunicado indefinitely with no access to a lawyer. it said no to the administrations decision to create military commissions without congressional authorization and it said no to the administration and to congress when they try to strip the constitutional right to

habeas corpus for prisoners held at guantanamo. these were courageous decisions and in my opinion they were correct decisions. they made plain as justice o'connor wrote in the hamdi decision, a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens. these were all close decisions. some decided by a 5-4 vote and that fact underscores the unparalleled power that the supreme court justice has. in my opinion one of the most important qualities the supreme court justice must have his courage. the courage to stand up to president, congress in order to protect the constitutional rights of the american people and preserve the rule of law. i have test on the crucial decisions of the court in the area of executive power but we know of course there are countless past supreme court decisions that had a major aspect of national life. the court rejected racial discrimination in education.

guarantee the principle of one person and one vote and make sure that even the poorest person accused of a crime in this country can be represented by counsel in nature that newspapers can be sued for libel by public figures for merely making a mistake. the protect the privacy of telephone conversations from unjustified governor eavesdropping unprotected an individual's right to possess a firearm for private use and decided the presidential election for quid made these decisions by interpreting and applying the open-ended language in our constitution, phrases like equal protection of the law, due process of law, freedom of the press, unreasonable searches and seizures and the right to bear arms. senator feinstein just suggested these momentous decisions were not simply the result of an umpire calling balls and strikes. easy cases where the law was clear almost never make it to the supreme court. the great constitutional issues that the supreme court is called upon to decide requires much

more than the mechanical application of universally accepted legal principles and that is why justices need great legal expertise but they also need the wisdom, judgment and they need to understand the impact of their decisions on the parties before them and the country around them from new york city to small towns like wisconsin. dunedin appreciation of the dedication to quality, liberty and democracy. that is why i suggest to everyone watching today that they be a little weary of the phrase at this hearing, judicial activism. that term really seems to have lost all use less, particularly since so many rulings of this conservative majority takes strife in their disregard and their willingness to ignore or override the intent of congress. at this point perhaps we should all except that the best definition of a judicial activist is a judge to decide the case in a way you don't

like. each of the decisions i mentioned earlier was undoubtedly criticized by someone at the time it was issued in maybe even today is being judicial activism, and get some of them are as the judge well knows, among the most revered supreme court's decisions in modern times. mr. chairman every senator is entitled to ask whatever questions he or she wants at these hearings and to look at whatever factors he/she find significant in evaluating this nominee. i hope judge sotomayor will answer all questions as fully as possible. certainly with the two most recent supreme court nomination senators did ask tough questions and sought as much information from the nominees as wiki get and i expect nothing less from my colleagues. i am glad however judge sotomayor will finally have an opportunity to enter some of the unsubstantiated charges that it been made again sir. one attack i find particularly shocking is the suggestion that she will be biased against the

lincoln's because of a racial and ethnic heritage. this charge is not based on anything in her record because there is absolutely nothing in the opinion she is written to support it. that record which is the most relevant evidence we have had to a dolly which her demonstrates a cautious and careful approach to judging. instead a few lines from a 2001 speech taken out of context that prompted some to charge that she is a racist. i believe that no one that reads the whole berkley speech could honestly come to that decision. it is a thoughtful attempt to grapple with issues not often discussed by judges. how does a judge's experience affect her? judge sotomayor convolutes your speech by saying the following. i am reminded each day that i have render decisions that affect people can't really and i owe them consonant complete its vigilance and checking my assumptions and perspectives in ensuring to the extent my

limited abilities in capabilities permit me that every evaluate them in changes circumstances and cases before me require. mr. chairman these are the words of a thoughtful, humble and self aware judge striving to do best to administer impartial justice from all americans from new york city to wisconsin. it seems to me that is a quality we want in our judges. judge sotomayor is living proof that this country is moving in the right direction on the issue of race, the doors of opportunity efron the starting to be open to all of our citizens and i think the nomination will inspire cal was children to study harder and dream hire and that is something we should all celebrate. let me again welcome and congratulate you and i look forward to formerly learning in these hearings that she has the judgment, integrity and the courage to serve with distinction on our nation's highest court. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you very much and i

will recognize senator kyl, the deputy republican leader of the united states senate. >> thank you mr. chairman. i would hope that every american is proud and hispanic woman has been nominated to sit on the supreme court. biffle stilling yard fisa and consent role we must evaluate judge sotomayor's fitness to serve by your merits. with the background accretes a prima facia case for confirmation, the primary question i believe judge sotomayor most addresses her understanding of the role of an appellate judge. from what she has said she appears to believe her role is not constrained to objectively decide who wins based on the weight of the law but rather who in her personal opinion should win. the factors that will influence her decision is currently include her gender and latino heritage and foreign legal concepts that if she said, give her creative juices going. what is the traditional basis for judging an american?

4220 years, presidents and the senate have focused on appointing in confirming judges and justices it are committed to putting aside their biases and prejudices and applying lots to fairly and impartially resolve disputes between parties. this principle is universally recognized in shared by judges across the ideological spectrum. for instance judge richard paez of the ninth circuit with whom i disagree on a number of issues explain this in the same venue were less than 24 hours earlier judge sotomayor made her famous remarks about it wise latino woman making better decisions on the other judges. judge paez described the instructions he gave to jurors who were about to hear a case. as jurors he said recognize that he might have some biases or prejudices, recognize it exists and determine what you can control it so that he can judge the case fairly because if you cannot, if you cannot set aside

those prejudices, biases and pashtuns then you should not sit on the case. and then judge paez said the same principle applies to judges. we take an oath of office at the federal level. it says in part that you promise horse were to do justice to both the poor and rich. the first time i heard this oath i was startled by its significance he said. i have my oath hanging on the wall in the office to remind me of my obligations and although i am a latino judge, i am do you visi latino judge. as i judge cases i try to judge them fairly. i tried to remain faithful. what judge paez said his than the standard for 220 years and it correctly describes the fundamental role for a judge. unfortunately a very important person has decided it is time for a change. time for a new kind of judge, one who will apply a different standard of judging including deployment of his or her empathy

for one of the parties to dispute. that person as president obama and the question before us is whether his first nominee to the supreme court follows his new model of judging, or the traditional model articulated by judge paez. president obama had in opposing the nomination of chief justice roberts said, walleck terrence to legal precedence and rules of statutory constitutional construction will dispose of 95% of the cases that come before a court. what matters on the court is those 5% of the cases that are truly difficult and as 5% of hard cases the constitutional text will not be directly on point, the language of the statute will not be perfectly clear. legal process alone will not lead you to a rule of decision. how does president obama proposed judges deal with these hard cases? does he want them to use judicial precedent, the canons of construction and other accepted tools of interpretation

that judges have used for centuries? no, president obama says in those difficult cases the critical ingredients is supplied by what is in the judge's part. of course every person should have empathy and in certain situations such as sentencing it may not be wrong for judges to be empathetic. the problem arises when empathy and other biases that are in the judges' cards become the critical ingredients to deciding cases. as judge paez explained a judge's prejudices, biases and passion should not be embraced. they must be set aside so that a judge can render an impartial decision as required by the judicial oath and as the parties before the court expect. i respectfully submit that president obama simply outside the mainstream in his statements about how judges should decide cases. i practiced law for almost 20 years before every level, state and federal court including the u.s. supreme court and never

once did i hear a lawyer argued that he had no legal basis to sustain his client's position so that he had to ask the judge to go with his guts or his heart. if judges routinely started rolling on the basis of their personal feelings however well-intentioned the entire legitimacy of the judicial system would be jeopardized. the question for this committee is whether judge sotomayor agrees with president obama's theory of judging or whether she will faithfully interpret the laws and constitution and take seriously the oath of her perspective office. many of judge sotomayor's statement suggests she may indeed allow or even embrace decision-making based on her biases and prejudices. the wise latino woman which i referred to earlier suggest that judge sotomayor endorses the view that a judge should allow gender, ethnic and experienced based biases to guide her when rendering judicial opinion.

this is in stark contrast to judge paez' you that these factors should be set aside. in the same lecture judge sotomayor's that there is, and i'm quoting here, there's no objective stance but only a series of perspectives. net neutrality, no escape from choice and judgement and claims that the aspirations of impartiality is just the common aspiration she says because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others. net neutrality, no impartiality in judging? is not what the judicial oath explicitly requires? judge sotomayor clearly rejected the notion that judges should strive for impartial justice. she has arctic said that her gender and latina heritage will affect the outcome of cases. in a speech to the porter reca@a

additionally, the best expansive foreign judicial opinions and practices of which one might draw simply gives activist judges cover for promoting their personal preferences instead of the law. you can understand my concern when she says judges must borrow ideas from foreign jurisdiction -- is going to lose influence in the world. that is not a judge's concern. some people will suggest that we shouldn't read too much into judge sotomayor's speeches and articles, the focus should

instead be on her judicial decisions. i agree and her judicial record and is an important component of our evaluation and i look for to hearing why for instance this supreme court has reversed are vacated 80 percent of her opinions that have reached that body. by total vote count of 52 to 19. but we can't simply brushed aside her extrajudicial statements. until now judge sotomayor has been operating under the restraining influence of a higher authority, the supreme court. if confirmed there'll be no such restraint that would prevent her from to paraphrase president obama deciding cases based on her heartfelt views. before we can and faithfully discharge our duty to advise and consent, we must be confident that judge sotomayor it is absolutely committed to setting aside her biases and impartially decide cases based on the rule of law.

>> senator schumer will be recognized for five minutes and will reserve is other five minutes for later on when he will be introducing judge sotomayor so senator schumer you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman and ranking member sessions, i want to well, judge sotomayor. we in new york are so proud of you and your whole family who i know are exceptionally proud to be here today to support this historic nomination. now are present today is about a nominee who is supremely well qualified with experience on the district court and appellate court benches that is unmatched in recent history. it's about a nominee who in 17 years of judging has offered opinion after opinion that is marked, thoughtful and

judicially modest. in short judge sotomayor has a stellar credentials there is no question about that. of judge sotomayor has twice before been nominated to the bench, counter confirmation hearings with bipartisan support, the first time she was nominated by republican president, but most important judge sotomayor's directorate who speaks her judicial modesty. something that our friends on the right have been clamoring for in a way that no recent nominees has. it is the judicial record more than speeches and statements, more than personal background and measures how modest a judicial nominee will be. there are several ways of measuring modesty in the judicial record and the judge sotomayor and more than measures up to each of them. first as a rule. the next few days, judge sotomayor a good rule of law above everything else.

given her a sense of an even-handed record, and i'm not sure how any member of this panel can sit here today and seriously suggest that she comes to the bench with a personal agenda. on mike justice -- justice alito you don't come with a record number of the sense. instead her record shows that she is in the mainstream, she has agreed with republican colleagues 95 percent of the time, she has ruled for the government in a 3% of immigration cases, against the immigration plaintive, she has ruled for the government in 92 percent of criminal cases, she has denied raise claims in 83 percent of the cases and the split evenly on employment cases between employer and employee. second, and this is an important point because of a unique experience in the district court, judge sotomayor tells of the early into the facts of each case. she trusts that an understanding of the tax will lead ultimately to justice. i would ask my colleagues to do

this: examine a sampling, random sampling of cases in a variety of areas. in case after case sherrill's upper slaves, learned the facts, applies to the law to the facts and comes to a decision in respect of her inclinations or personal experience. in a case involving a new york police officer who made a white supremacist remarks she upheld his right to make them. in a case brought by plaintiffs who claimed they have been bombed from a plane because of race she dismissed their case because the law required and should have held the first amendment right of a prisoner to religious beads under his uniforms. and hot-button cases such as professional sports she adheres to the facts before her and upheld the nfl ability to maintain a certain player restrictions but also ruled in favor of baseball players to end the major league baseball strike. and third, judge sotomayor has

few carefully to the text of statues even when doing so results and released that go against so-called sympathetic litigants'. in dissenting from an award of damages to injured plaintiffs in a maritime accident she wrote: we start with the assumption that is for congress, not the federal courts, to articulate the proper standards to be applied at a matter of federal law. mr. chairman, just four short years ago, then judge robert sat with judge sotomayor is sitting, he told us that his jurisprudence would be characterized by modesty and humility. he illustrated this with the now well-known quote: judges are like empires, umpires don't make the rules that apply them. chief justice roberts it was and is a supremely intelligent man with impeccable credentials, but many can debate whether his four years on the supreme court he actually called a pitches as

they come. or whether he tried to change the rules. but any objective review of judge sotomayor's record on the second circuit and leaves no doubt that she has simply call the balls and strikes for 17 years, far more closely than chief justice roberts has during his four years on the supreme court. more important, if judge sotomayor continues to approach cases on this supreme court as she has with a laugh 17 years, she will be actually modest judicially. this is because she does not adhere to a philosophy that dictates results over fact that are presented so in conclusion that the number one standard that conservatives use and apply is a judicial modesty and humility, know activism on the supreme court, they should vote for a judge sotomayor unanimously. and lamborn to the next few days of hearings into it judge sotomayor's confirmation.

>> thank you very much. i wanted to recognize senator gramm and senator cardin and then we're going to take a short break. senator graham. >> well, thank you. i've learned something already, the schumer conservative standard. we will see how that works. no republican would have chosen you, judge, that is just the way it is. we would have picked miguel estrada and what of all voted for him. and i don't think anybody on that side would have voted for judge estrada this is a honduran immigrant who came to this country as a teenager, graduated from columbia magna cum laude from harvard 1986 magna cum laude and law review editor, stellar background like yours. fess just the way it was. he never had a chance to have this hearing here he was nominated by president bush to

the d.c. circuit court of appeals which i think most people agree it is probably the second highest court in the land and he never had this day. so the hispanic elements of this hearing is important, but i don't want it to be lost. this is mostly about liberal and conservative politics more than anything else and having said that there are some of my colleagues on the other side that voted for judge roberts and justice alito knowing they would not have chosen either one of those and i will remember that. now, unless you have a complete meltdown you are going to get confirmed. [laughter] and i don't thank you will, but the drama is being created here is interesting. my republican colleagues to vote against duke i assure you could vote for an hispanic nominee, they just feel unnerved by your speeches and by some of the things that you have said in some of your cases.

now having said that, i don't know what i'm glad to do yet, but i do believe that you as an advocate with a puerto rican legal defense fund and that you took on some cases that i would have loved to have been on the other side, that organization advocated taxpayer funded abortion and said in a brief that to deny a poor black woman medicaid funding for an abortion was equivalent to the address scott case. now that's a pretty extreme thing to say but i think it was hard foul. i would look at the other way to take my tax payer dollars and provide an abortion to pay for abortion i disagree with is pretty extreme. so there are two ways of looking at that. you were a prosecutor but the organization bargained for the repeal of the death penalty because it was unfairly applied and discriminatory against minorities. your organization argued import quotas when it came to hiring. i just want my colleagues to

understand that there can be no more liberal group in my opinion then an puerto rican defense legal fund when it came to advocacy and what i hope is if we ever get a conservative president and nominate someone who has an equal passion on the other side that we will not forget this moment. that she could be a day and are a general counsel and still be a good lawyer. my point is not going to hold it against you or the organization for advocating a cause from which i disagree. that makes america a special place. i would have loved to been on those cases on the other side, i hope that would disqualify me. now, when it comes to your speeches, that is the most troubling thing to me. because that gives us an indication when you're able to get outside the courtroom when out of the road and inside how you think life works in this wise latino, and has been talked about a lot but i will say, if i

said anything remotely like that my career would happen over. that is true of most people here. and you need to understand that and i look forward to talking to you about that comment, does that mean that i think you're a racist, you have been called some bad things -- no, it just bothers me when somebody wearing a robe takes the rope off and says that their experience makes them better than someone else. i think your experience can add a lot to the court, i don't think it makes you better than anyone else. now, when the pitcher record there's a lot of truth to what senator schumer said. i don't thank you have taken the opportunity on the circuit to have a cause german judge, but what we're talking about here today is what will you do when it takes policy and i'm pretty well convinced i know what you're going to do. you're probably going to decide cases differently than i would. so that brings me back to what am i supposed to do now and that. i don't think anybody here work

harder for senator mccain and i did but we lost and president obama one. and that ought to matter. it does to may. now what standard to live apply? i can assure you that if i applied senator obama's standard two your nomination i would not vote for you. and because the standard that he articulated would make it impossible for anybody with my view of the law and society to vote for somebody with your activism and background. when it comes to lawyering and judging. he said something about the 5 percent of the cases that for all driven by, he said something to the fact in most difficult cases and the critical ingredient is applied by what is in the judge's part. well, i have no way of knowing what is in your heart anymore than you have knowing what is in my heart, so that to me is an absurd dangerous standard and maybe something good could come

out of these hearings. if we start applying that to nominees, it will ruin the judiciary. i have no idea what is in your hard to any more than you have a an idea of what is in my heart and i think it takes us down a very dangerous road as a country when we start doing that. now, there is a time when someone like justice scalia and justice ginsburg got 95 plus votes. if you're confused about where he was coming down, as a judge you shouldn't be voting. any more than if you are a mystery about what justice ginsburg was going to do in a 5 percent of cases -- that is no mystery. there are some aspects of you that i'm not sure about that gives me hope that she may not go down senator feingold road when goes to the war of terror and we'll talk but that later, but generally speaking the president has nominated someone

of good character, someone who has lived a very full and fruitful life, who is passionate from day one of the chance event to showcase who you are you have stood out, stood up, and you have been a strong advocate an annual speaker mind. and one thing i am worried about is that if we keep doing what we are doing we are going to deter people from speaking their minds. and i don't want those kind of judges. i wanted to be able to speak ermine but you've got to understand that when you gave the speeches as a sitting judge, that was disturbing to me. i want lawyers to believe in something and are willing to fight for it and i know what the young lawyers of this country feeling like there are certain clients they can represent because when they come before the senate's it will be the end of their career. so i don't know how i am going to vote, but my inclination is

that elections matter and i'm not going to do be upset with any of my colleagues to find that you're a bridge too far because in many ways what you have done in your legal career and the speeches you have made give me great insight as to whether -- where you'll come out on the 5 percent of cases but president obama won the election and i will respect that, but when he was here he said in motion a standard i thought that was more about seeking the presidency than being fair to the nominee. when he said that the critical ingredient is supplied by a voice in the judge's heart translated that means i'm not going to vote against my base because i'm running for president. we've got a chance to start over. i hope we will take that chance and you will be asked hard questions and i thank you expect that. my belief is that you will do well.

because whether or not i agree with you on the big theme to live is not important. the question for me is having earned the right to be here. end if i give you this rope to put you on the supreme court to do i believe at the end of the day that you will do what you think is best, that you have courage and you will be fair come thursday i think i will know more about that. good luck. >> thank you. just note so we make sure we're doing the same facts, mr. estrada was nominated when republicans were in charge in the senate and was not given a hearing by the republicans. he was given a hearing when the democrats took back the majority and the senate and then he was given at that hearing and told that the number of questions were submitted to him by both republicans and democrats and before it could be set for a vote on the floor we answered the questions.

he declined -- he may have been distracted by an offer of a very high paying lot burma, but i don't know. it was not given a hearing whether the republicans were in charge and was given a hearing when the democrats in charge. >> mr. chairman, since you brought it up. >> i will yield to senator sessions. >> we had seven attempts to bring him up for a final quote and that was blocked, i think this book on his behalf or than any other senator and i remember. i do feel like that it was a clear decision on the part of the democrats and the objection over release of documents, of course or the internal legal memorandum that he had provided and the seven formal solicitor general said it was not appropriate to produce. thank you. >> he should have had the hearing when republicans were in

charge but you are safe. senator cranston and senator carbon, once he is finished we will take a tenebrae. >> judge sotomayor, welcome to the u.s. cent. i think you'll find is a member of the senate wants to do what is right for our country and we may differ on some of our views that will come out during this hearing, but i think we all share in respect for your public service and thank you for your willingness to serve on the supreme court of the united states and we think your family for the sacrifices they have made. i'm honored to represent the people of maryland in the u.s. senate and to serve on the judiciary committee as we consider one of art must import responsibilities whether we should recommend to the full senate the confirmation of judge sonia sotomayor to be an associate justice of the supreme court of the united states. the next term the supreme court that begins in october is likely to considered fundamental issues that will impact the lives of all americans. in recent years there have been many board decisions decided by the supreme court 55 to four

vote in each complain a critical role in forming the new consensus in our nation's highest court. then you just as good and very well may have a profound impact on the direction of the court. a supreme court decisions affect each and every person in our nation. i think of my own family's history -- my grandfather came to america more than a hundred years ago. i'm convinced that they came to america not only for greater economic opportunities because of the ideals expressed in our constitution especially the first mammon guaranteeing a religious freedom. my grandparents, their children to grow up in the country were there able to practice their jewish faith and fully participate in their commiting government. my father became a lawyer, a state legislator, circuit court judge and president of the synagogue. and now his son and serves in the u.s. senate. well our founding fathers make freedom of religion and prayer a chemical protection for all races took longer to achieve it.

i attended liberty school number 64, in public elementary school in baltimore city. it was part of the severed in a public school system that under law denied every student in baltimore the opportunity to learn in a classroom that represent the diversity of our community. i remember with great sadness how discrimination was not only can down but more often than not actually encouraged against blacks, jews, catholics and other minorities in the community. there never has that my parents wanted me to avoid for fear of safety because i was jewish. the local movie theater denied admission is two african-americans, committed to swimming pools have size of the said no shoes, no blacks allowed, even baltimores amusement parks and sports club for segregated by race. then came brown vs. board of education and suddenly my universe a community were changed forever. the decision and some of our nation forward by correcting grievous wrongs bills into law.

it also brought to the forefront of our nation's consciousness in a great future jurist from baltimore, thurgood marshall. marshall had been denied admission to the university of maryland law school due to the color of his skin but went on to represent the plaintiffs in the 1954 landmark brown vs. board of education. in 1967 in it was marshall the grants of a slave who was appointed by president lyndon johnson as a the first african-american to serve on the supreme court. the nine justices of the u.s. supreme court had the tremendous responsibility of safeguarding the framers intend to indicting values of our constitution while ensuring the protection of rights found in the very constitution relevant to the issues of friday. at times the supreme court has and should look beyond popular sentiment to preserve the basic principles and role of law. the next justice who will fill justice justice souter place will be in a poor place on these

fundamental issues. is my belief that the constitution and bill of rights are treated to stay together as a foundation for the rule of law and our nation. our history reflects this year when the constitution was written african-americans were considered property in canada only 3/5 of a person, now individuals restricted by race as to the contrary, laws were passed by congress and decisions by the supreme court undeniably moved our country for the continuing the progression of constitutional protections that changed our nation for the better. before the court ruled brown vs. board of education that separate was not a quote it permitted the side you have separate facilities and before the court ruled in flubbing vs. virginia estate of her habit persons from airing based on race and before the court ruled on roe vs. wade women had no constitutional applied right to privacy. these are difficult questions that have come before the court and the framers could not have anticipated.

new challenges will continue to rise with the basic free-market protections remained. i want to compliment president obama and forwarding to that u.s. senate in nominee judge sonia sotomayor u.s. well qualified for consideration, her well-rounded background including extensive experience as a prosecutor, a trial judge appellate judge prove a valuable addition to our core. as a relatively new member of the senate judiciary committee as i prepared for this week i considered it a few key standards that apply to all judicial nominations. first i believe nominees must have an appreciation of the constitution of protections it provides to each and every american. she or he must embrace traditional philosophy that reflects mainstream american values, not a narrow ideological interests. they should have a strong passion to continue the courts advances and so rights, there is a careful balance to be found here our next justice should advance to the protections in

our constitution and but not disregard important precedents that have made our society stronger by embracing our civil liberties. i believe judicial nominees also must demonstrate a respect for the rights and responsibilities of each branch of government. these criteria allow me to audit a particular judge whether he or she might place on the other personal philosophy had a responsibility of office. as in this commence -- i want to have quote justice marshall who said: none of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, it was judge sotomayor as a poor example of how a family, hard work, support of professors and mentors and opportunity come together to create the real american success story. she was born in new york to a puerto rican family and group public housing projects in south bronx, her mother was anderson father was a factor worker with a third grade education. she was taught early in life that education is the key to success and strong work ethic

enabled her to excel in school and graduate valedictorian of her high school. she attended princeton university graduating cum laude and phi beta kappa, she receives a high slaughters to an undergraduate, and your shoes editor of the law review were issue is not to stand up for herself and not be intimidated by anyone. nominee by democrats to republican presidents for 17 years she has been a distinguished jurist and now has more federal judicial experience than any supreme court nominee in the last 100 years. this week's hearings are essential, some understanding of the context of a judge sotomayor's wife and their role should potential is about to fill in the supreme court i believe is a particularly important to question the judge sotomayor on the guiding principles to reduce in reaching decisions. for example, is it important for me to understand her interpretation of establish precedents on protecting individual constitutional rights. i believe it would be wrong for

the supreme court justices to turn back on landmark president of protecting individual constitutional rights. as likely as the supreme court will consider to burn protections about our constitution for women our environment and consumers as well as voting rights, privacy, separation of church and state among others in coming years. supreme court also has recently been active in opposing limits on executive power and will continue to do the constitutional rights in our criminal justice system, the rights of terror detainees and the rights of non-citizens. all of these issues destinations and the supreme court's commitment to our accounting principles and fundamental values. for this reason we need to know how our nominee mine approached the issues and analyze these decisions. mr. chairman cannot afford to hearing from judge sotomayor on these issues and expect she will share this committee and the american people her judicial views and her thoughts from the protections in our constitution.

once again judge sotomayor, and to thank you for your public-service and readiness to take on the responsibilities of our nation and i also want to think your family with their clear support and sacrifice that have brought us to this hearing today. >> thank you, and after discussion with senator sessions we will take a 10 minute break and then come back and try and figure out the lunch hour time. but you have been very patient, judge. one thing we will do in case of the press wonders, there is a sign in front of view that has your name which everybody knows here. it is a golden such a way that is shining bright in the eyes. don't you worry -- assign will be gone and that it does a man is not your place when you come back. [laughter] thank you. we stand in recess for 10 minutes. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] ..

[inaudible conversations] >> judge, you may have a broken ankle but he beat me back to the hearing room, and i think,

senator cornyn would be next? senator cornyn and then senator whitehouse. >> thank you mr. chairman. judge sotomayor, you will recall justice jackson said of the supreme court, we are not final because we are in fallable. we are infallable only because we are final. hence, the importance of these hearings in your nomination and i want to join my colleagues in extending a warm welcome to you and your family. and, of course, joined by my other colleagues who have noted your distinguished career, as i have said as often as i have been asked about your nomination in the weeks since it occurred, i said your nomination should make us all feel good as americans, that people of humble origin can work hard through

sacrifice, love and the support of their families and achieve great things in america. that makes me feel very good about our country and about the opportunity it provides to each of us. in the history of the united states, their only been 110 people who have served on the supreme court, 110. it is amazing to think about that. this means that each and every supreme court nomination is a historic moment for our nation. eats supreme court nomination is a time for national conversation and reflection on the role of the supreme court. we ask ourselves, those of us who have the constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent, what is the proper direction of the supreme court in deciding how we should vote and conduct ourselves during the course of the hearing? and of course it think it is always useful to recall our

history, that the framers created a written constitution to make sure our constitutional rights were fixed and certain, that the state conventions, who represented we the people, looked at that written constitution and decided to ratify it. the idea was of course that our rights should not be floating in the ether but rather be written down for all to see, so we can all understand what those rights in fact are. this framework gave judges a role that is both unique and very important. the role of judges was intended to be modest. that is, self restraint and limited. judges of course are not free to invent new rights as they see fit. rather, they are supposed to enforce the constitution's text and to leave the rest up do we

the people through the elected representatives of the people, such as the congress. it is my opinion that over time, the supreme court has often beard off the course established by our framers. first the supreme court has invented new rights, not clearly rooted in any constitutional text. for example the supreme court is micromanaged the death penalty, recognized in 35 states and by the federal government itself. and created new rights spun from whole cloth. it is a constitutional rules governing everything from punitive damages to sexual activity. it has relied on international law, which we have heard some discussion about, that the people of never adopted. the supreme court's even has taken on the job of defining the rules of the game of golf. if you are curious, that is a

pga tour versus martin from 2001. some people have talked about judicial activism and in one sense i think people say activism is a good thing if it is enforcing the rights of the laws that have been passed by the legislative branch. on the other hand, as you know, inventing new rights to veering off this course of enforcing harrison text and polling ideas out of the ether are pretty far from enforcing the constitution the framers imposed and that the people and active. my opinion is as the supreme court has invented new rights, it has often neglected others. this flip side is troubling to me too. many of the original important safeguards on government power have been watered down or even ignored. express constitutional limitations like the takings clause of the fifth amendment designed to protect private property and the commerce clause's limitations on the

first amendment as well as the second amendment's right to keep and bear arms i believe have been artificially limited. almost like they have been written out of the constitution over time. on occasion judges just haven't and force them like i believe the american people expected them to do. so, what is the future like? where should the supreme court go from here? i think there are two choices. first, the supreme court can try to get us back on course. that is, the court could demonstrate renewed respect for our original plan of government and return us slowly but surely to written constitution and written laws. rather then the judge made a lot. the supreme court's recent 2nd amendment decision in deep receivers is heller i think it's a good decision. or the court could alternatively theroft courts once again and follow its own star.

it can continue to depart from the written constitution. it could further erode this debose rights that we have in the text of the constitution and it could then, could invent even more brand new writes not rooted in the text and not agreed to by the american people. your honor, i think the purpose of this hearing is to determine which path you would take us on if confirmed to the united states supreme court. would you vote to return to a written constitution and laws written by the elected representatives of the people or would you take us further away from the written constitution and laws legitimized by the consent of the government? to help the american people understand which of these paths he would take this down we need to know more about your record. we need to know more about the legal reasoning behind some of your opinions on the second circuit and we need to know more about some of their public statements related to your judicial philosophy. in looking at your opinions on

the second circuit we recognized lower court judges are bound by the supreme court and by circuit precedent. to borrow a football analogy the lower court judges like the quarterback who executes the plays, not the coats that calls them. that means many of your cases don't really tell us that much about your judicial philosophy or what it would be in action if confirmed to the united states supreme court. a few of your opinions to raise questions and they do suggest i think the kinds of plays he would call if you are promoted to the coaching staff. these opinions raised the question, would you steer the court in a direction of limiting the rights that generations of americans have regarded as fundamental? so, americans need to know what he would limit for example the scope of the 2nd amendment and whether we can count on you to uphold one of the fundamental liberties enshrined in the bill of rights. we need to know what he would limit the scope of the fifth

amendment and whether you would expand the definition of public use by which government can take private property from one person and give it to another. and we need to know whether he will uphold the plane language of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, promising that though-- no state shall deny to any person the coal protection of the laws. judge, some of your opinion suggesting would limit some of these constitutional rights and some of their public statements that have already been mentioned suggest it would invent rights that do not exist in the constitution. for example in 2001 speech to argue there is no object of did he in law. but only what you called a series of perspectives rooted in life experience of the judge. in a 2006 speech he said that judges can and even must change the law, even introduce what you called radical change, to meet the needs of an evolving

society. in a 2009 speech to endorse the use of foreign lot in interpreting the american constitution on the grounds that gives judges "good ideas." that "get their creative juices flowing." judge sotomayor, no one can accuse you of not having been candid about your cues. not every nominee is so open about their views. yet, many americans are left to wonder whether these, what these various statements mean and what you are trying to get that. some wonder whether you are the kind of judge who will uphold the written constitution or the kind of judge who will of the year us off course and toward new rights invented by judges rather then ratified by the people. these are some of my concerns and i assure you you will have every opportunity to address those and make clear which path he would take us down if you are confirmed to the supreme court.

i thank you very much and congratulations once again. >> thank you very much senator cornyn. center whitehouse. >> thank you mr. chairman. judge sotomayor, welcome to you and your family. your nomination has already been a remarkable legal career and i join many, many americans who are so proud to see you here today. it is a great country, isn't it? and, you represent its greatest attributes. your record leaves no doubt that you have the intellectual ability to serve as justice. from meeting with you and from the outpouring of support i have experienced both personally and from organizations that have worked with you, your demeanor, your collegiality are well established. i appreciate your years as a prosecutor working in the trenches of law-enforcement. i am looking forward to learning more about the experience and

judgment you are poised to bring to the supreme court. in the last two and a half months and today, my republican colleagues have talked a great deal about judicial modesty and restraint. fair enough to appoint, but that point comes when these words become slogans, not real critiques as your record. indeed, these calls for restraint and modesty and complaints about activist judges are often code words, seeking a particular kind of judge who will deliver a particular set of political outcomes. it is there to inquire and to-- and we will hear have a serious and fair inquiry. but, the pretense that republican nominees in body modesty and restraint where the

democratic nominees must be activist, run starkly counter to recent history. i particularly reject the analogy of a judge to an umpire who merely calls balls and strikes. if judging where that mechanical, we would not need nine supreme court justices. the task of an appellate judge, particularly on a court of final appeal, is often to define the strike zone. within a matrix of constitutional principle, legislative intent and is statutory construction. the empire analogy is belied by chief justice roberts. though he cast himself as an umpire during his confirmation hearings. jeffrey toobin, the well-respected legal commentator, has reason reported that, and this is a quote, in every major case since he became the 17th chief justice roberts

has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff. some of empire. and it is a coincidence that this pattern to continue to win's quote has served the interests and reflected the values of the contemporary republican party? some coincidence. for all the talk of modesty and restraint, the right wing justice is that the court have a striking record of ignoring precedence, overturning congressional statutes, limiting constitutional protections and discovering new constitutional rights. the infamous ledbetter decision for instance, at the louisville and seattle integrate-- immigration cases, the first limitation on roe versus wade that out right disregards the

women's health and safety. and the d.c. heller decision discovering a constitutional right to own guns that the court had not previously noticed in 220 years. some balls and strikes. over and over news reporting discusses fundamental changes in the law brought by the roberts court said right wing flank. the roberts court has not kept the promises of modesty or humility made when president bush nominated justices roberts and alito. so, judge sotomayor i would like to avoid code words and look for a simple pledge from you during his hearings, that you will respect the role of congress as a representative of the american people, that he will decide cases based on the law and the facts, that you will not prejudge any case but listen to every party that comes before you and that you will respect president and limit yourself to the issues the court must

decide. in short, that you will use the broad discretion of the supreme court justice wisely. let me emphasize that broad discretion. as justice stevens has said, the work of federal judges from the days of john marshall to the present, like the work of the english common law judges, sometimes requires the exercise of judgment. the faculty that calls into play notions of justice, fairness and concern about the future impact of a decision. look at our history. america's common law inheritance is the accretion over generations of individual exercises of judgement. our constitution is a great document that john marshall noted, leaves the minor ingredients, to be deduced by our justices from the documents great principles. the liberties in our constitution have their boundaries defined in the gray and overlapping areas by informed judgment. none of this is balls and

strikes. it has been a truism sense barbaro versus madison, the courts have the authority to say what the law is even to invalidate statutes enacted by the elected branches of government and the conflict of the constitutions of the issue is not whether you have a wide field of discretion, you will. you are not free to act as a-- roman yep willam caressive your own ideal of beauty or goodness if he concluded wide enough in all conscience is the feel that discretion that remains. the question for this hearing is, will you bring good judgment to that right field? will you understanding care how your decisions affect the lives of americans? will you user broad discretion to a band's the promises of liberty and justice made by the constitution? i believe that your diverse life experience, your broad professional background, your expertise as a judge s. eads level let the system will bring

you that judgment. as oliver wendell holmes timothy said the light of the law has not been logic. it has been experience. if your wide experience brings a sense to the difficult circumstances faced by the less powerful among us, the woman shuddered from voice milton voicemail as she tries to avoid foreclosure, the families struggling to get by in the neighborhood where police only come, the couple of late after the kids are in bed sweating out how to make ends meet that month, the man who believes a little differently or looks a little different or thinks things should be different. if you empathy for those people in this job, you are doing nothing wrong. the founding fathers set up the american judiciary as a check on the excesses of the elected branches and as a refuge. when those branches are corrupted or consumed by passing passions, the courts were designed to be our guardians,

those still humors which the arts of divining-- dasani men where can junctures' sometimes disseminate among the people and which have a tendency to occasion serious depressions of the minor party in the community. in present circumstances those oppressions tend to fall and the port and voiceless what is hamilton noted consider it description ought to prize would never fortified that temper in the courts come as no man can be sure that he may not be tomorrow the victim of a spirit of injustice by which he may be a gainer today. the quorum can be the only sanctuary for the little guy when the forces of society are arrayed against him. when proper opinion and elected official blum willen tiem no er. this is a correct, fitting and intended function of the judiciary in our constitutional

structure and the empathy president obama sought in you has a constitutionally proper place in that structure. if everyone on the court always voted for the prosecution against the defendant, for the corporation against the plaintiffs and for the government against the condemned the vital spark of american democracy would be extinguished. a quorum is supposed to be a place for the status quo can be disrupted, even up ended when the constitution or laws may require, where the comfortable can sometimes be afflicted many afflicted find some comfort all under the stearn shelter of the law. it is worth remembering judges of the united states of sean great courage over the years, courage verging on heroism in providing that sanctuary of careful attention which aims-- james bryce called the cool dry atmosphere of official determination amidst the inflamed passions or invested powers of the day. judge sotomayor i believe your broad background in empathy

preparer you welch for this constitutional and proper judicial role and i join my colleagues in welcoming you to the committee and i am looking forward to your testimony. >> thank you. judge, welcome. it is truly an honor to have you before us. it says something remarkable about our country that you were here, and i assure you during your time before this committee you'll be treated with the utmost respect and kindness. it will not distinguish however, that we will be thorough as we probe the areas where we have concerns. there is no question that you have a stellar resumes, and if resumes and judicial history are all that we went by, we would not need to have this hearing but in fact other things add into that.

equally important to us providing consent on this nomination is self-determination that you have a judicial philosophy that reflects what are founders intended. there is great division about what that means and i also wanted to note that i thought this was your hearing, not judge robert zearing and the partial-birth abortion ban was a law passed by the united states congress and was upheld by the supreme court, so i have a different point of view on that. as i expressed to you in our meeting i think our nation is that a critical point. i think we are starting to see cracks and the reason i say that is because i think the glue that binds our nation together is not their political philosophies. we have very different political philosophies. the thing that binds us together is and i need to trust that you can have fair and impartial

judgment in this country. that we become a better than any other nation, when we have been correcting the wrongs of our founders, but we have instilled confidence that in fact when you come before it, there is blind justice and that in fact allows us the ability to overlook other areas where we are not so good, because it instill some of the confidence of an opportunity to have a fair hearing and they just outcome. i am concerned and as many of my colleagues with some of your statements, and i don't know if these statements were made to be provocative or if they are truly heartfelt in what you have said. but, i note that some of those concerns will guide my questioning when we come to the questioning period, and you were

very straightforward with me in our meeting and my hope is that you will be here as well. i am deeply concerned by your assertion that the laws on certain. that goes completely with the against what i just said about the rule of law been the glue that binds together and you were praised for an unpredictable system of justice. i think we wanted to be predictable. we want it to be predictable in its fairness and in the fact of how cases are reviewed and it shouldn't matter which judge you get. it should matter what the law is and what the facts are. and, i am worried that have our constitution may be seems to be malleable and involving when i come as someone who comes from the heartland, seems to grasp the people i represent from the state of oklahoma, there is a

foundational document in their statutes and occasionally treaties that should be the rule rather than our opinions. the other statements such as the court of appeals is where policy is made, that is surprising to me. and, as i look at our founders, the court is to be a check, not a policymaker. your assertion that ethnicity and gender will make someone a better judge, although i understand feelings and emotions behind that, i am not sure that that can be factually correct. maybe a better judge than some but not a better judge than others. the other statement, there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives. no neutrality, no escape from choice and judgement. what that implies, the fact that

it is subjective implies that it is not objective and if we disregard objective consideration the fact that all of the rulings are subjective, and we lose the glue that binds us together as a nation. even more important is the, your question of whether the-- a partialities including transcending personal sympathies and prejudices' is possible in most cases or is even desirable, is extremely troubling to me. you have taken the oath already twice and it confirmed will take it again, and i want to repeat it again. it is then said was this morning. here is the oath, i do solemnly swear or affirm that i will administer justice without respect to persons and do equal right to the port and to the rich and will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all of the duties incumbent upon me under the

constitution and the lows of the united states so help me god. does not reference for a lot anywhere. a doesn't reference whether or not we lose influence in the international community. we lost influence when we became a country in the international community to several countries but the fact that it not impede us from establishing this great republic. i think this oath succinctly captures the role of a judge and i am concerned about some of your statements in regard to that coming your philosophy might be and i'm not saying it is, inconsistent with your impartial and neutral arbitrae clothed. with regard to your judicial philosophy the burden of proof rests on you but in this case that burden has been exaggerated by some of your statements and also by some of president obama's statements, to nominate someone who is not impartial but

instead favors certain groups of people for good during the campaign he promised to nominate someone who has got the empathy to recognize what it is like to be a young teenage mom. the implication is that our judges today don't have that. do you realize how that is? the empathy to understand what it is like to be poor, to be african-american, disabled or old. most of our judges understand what it is like to be old. senator obama referred his standard when he voted against chief justice roberts. he stated the tough cases can only be determined on the basis of one's deepest values, once or concerns, one broader perspective on how the world works in the depth and breadth of one sympathy. i believe that standardless apathetical to the proper role of a judge. the american people expect their judges to treat all litigants equally, not to favor and not to

enter the courtroom already prejudiced against one of the parties. that is why lady justice is always depicted blind and white aristotle defined law as reason free from passion. we expect the judge to merely call out balls and strikes. maybe so, maybe not, but we certainly don't expect them to sympathize with one party over the other and that is where empathy comes from. sotomayor, you must prove to the senate that you will adhere to the proper role of a judge, and only days your opinions on the constitution, statutes and when appropriate, treaties. that is your oath. that is what the constitution demands of you. you must demonstrate that you will strictly interpret the constitution and our laws and will not be swayed by your peal