{"id":193,"date":"2009-06-30T11:22:05","date_gmt":"2009-06-30T11:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/06\/sotomayor-convinces-49-of-supr.html"},"modified":"2009-06-30T11:22:05","modified_gmt":"2009-06-30T11:22:05","slug":"sotomayor-convinces-49-of-supr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/06\/sotomayor-convinces-49-of-supr.html","title":{"rendered":"Sotomayor Convinces 4\/9 of Supreme Court She Is Right"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jay, give me a break.&nbsp; Four of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court yesterday reached the same conclusion that Judge Sonia Sotomayor did as a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.&nbsp; The other five reached an alternative conclusion.&nbsp; So, are you suggesting that Judge Sotomayor is out of the judicial mainstream?&nbsp; Or are you suggesting that four sitting justices (technically, three because Justice Souter has retired)&nbsp;are out of the same mainstream?&nbsp; Last week, Clarence Thomas was a lone dissenter in a case involving a strip search of a 14 year old woman at a high school.&nbsp; Maybe he is out of the mainstream, too.&nbsp; How many mainstreams are there? (The Alliance for Justice has done a<a href=\"http:\/\/www.afj.org\/check-the-facts\/supreme-court-watch\/the-sotomayor-record_civil-rights-constitutional-protections.pdf\"> new report <\/a>on just how careful Judge Sotomayor is in&nbsp;civil rights cases.)<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday&#8217;s decision will play no significant role in the ultimate decision about Judge Sotomayor&#8217;s elevation to the high court.&nbsp;She will be on the Supreme Court by the time oral arguments begin in October, and will likely be there for the special&nbsp;September&nbsp;rehearing in the case of the film\/ad about Hillary Clinton which the Court also ordered yesterday.&nbsp; No matter how much money the &#8220;Right&#8221; spends on ads and no matter how much nonsense Republican Senators spout about &#8220;original intent&#8221;, &#8220;strict constructionism&#8221; and other code-words for &#8220;we don&#8217;t like anybody Obama wants on the court&#8221;, she will be approved by a clear Senate majority.<br \/>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This is a really terrific book out by Christopher Eisgruber,&nbsp;the provost of Princeton University (formerly a longtime law professor at New York University law school) called <u>The Next Justice<\/u>.&nbsp; It is as clear and crisp an analysis of what is wrong with the current charade we call the &#8220;appointments process&#8221; for the Supreme Court.&nbsp; He argues persuasively that all Justices use both ideological and procedural &#8220;values&#8221; in deciding cases.&nbsp; On &#8220;equal protection&#8221; he concludes: &#8220;The meaning of equality is fundamentally contested; judges cannot appeal to some uncontroversial standard of equality that exists outside and apart from competing theories about equality.&#8221; Thank goodness that Judge Sotomayor understands equality in a way unlike the crabbed view of, say, Clarence Thomas.<\/p>\n<p>Readers interested in hearing an interview with Eisgruber can go to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cultureshocks.com\">www.cultureshocks.com<\/a> for a listen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jay, give me a break.&nbsp; Four of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court yesterday reached the same conclusion that Judge Sonia Sotomayor did as a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.&nbsp; The other five reached an alternative conclusion.&nbsp; So, are you suggesting that Judge Sotomayor is out of the judicial mainstream?&nbsp; Or&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,123,69],"tags":[76,189,190,51,67,188,388],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-constitutional-law","category-president-barack-obama","category-supreme-court","tag-barack-obama","tag-christopher-eisgruber","tag-equal-protection","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-sonia-sotomayer","tag-supreme-court"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sotomayor Convinces 4\/9 of Supreme Court She Is Right - Lynn v. Sekulow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/06\/sotomayor-convinces-49-of-supr.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sotomayor Convinces 4\/9 of Supreme Court She Is Right - Lynn v. Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jay, give me a break.&nbsp; Four of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court yesterday reached the same conclusion that Judge Sonia Sotomayor did as a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.&nbsp; The other five reached an alternative conclusion.&nbsp; So, are you suggesting that Judge Sotomayor is out of the judicial mainstream?&nbsp; Or&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/06\/sotomayor-convinces-49-of-supr.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lynn v. Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-30T11:22:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rev. Barry W. Lynn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Sotomayor Convinces 4\/9 of Supreme Court She Is Right - Lynn v. 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Barry W. Lynn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/06\/sotomayor-convinces-49-of-supr.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/06\/sotomayor-convinces-49-of-supr.html","name":"Sotomayor Convinces 4\/9 of Supreme Court She Is Right - Lynn v. 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Sekulow","description":"A debate blog about church, state, faith and politics with Jay Sekulow and Barry W. Lynn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/98ebaf547801cce8ce6fff4c27f51fc8","name":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","caption":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn"},"description":"Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution's religious liberty provisions (www.au.org). In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues. An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}