ardee:

All, true. And unlike the right wingers, I’m not afraid she’ll be radicalizing the court since Souter was fairly liberal too.

rfidler, August 9 at 1:11 pm #

ardee:

I guess I meant it hasn’t changed since the last amendment was passed, and I don’t expect Justice Sotomayor’s creativity to get very far.
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I am aware, as are you I believe, that the previous history of a Justices’ views and rulings cannot always be seen as an arbiter of how that person will rule once donning the lifetime black robe of a Supreme. I would offer Earl Warren as a perfect example of this. Eisenhower once noted that the appointment of Warren was his major mistake.

Creativity is pretty difficult to achieve when ones vote is only 1/9th of the final count. I will await her writings, whether in dissent of a decision or in support thereof, for a true insight.

ardee:

I guess I meant it hasn’t changed since the last amendment was passed, and I don’t expect Justice Sotomayor’s creativity to get very far.

rfidler, August 7 at 8:23 am #

ardee:
Well, since the constitution hasn’t changed, why would you think decisions based on it would?
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The Constitution has changed , twenty seven times in fact…..It is, I believe, a living, breathing document.

The courts once approved of slavery, now the courts do not…that seems a relevant change….Sorry, what was the point?

I’m glad we’re making sure everybody is in the right “group”. Otherwise, how do we know which line to stand in to file our grievances and demand our pieces of the pie.

Also, I’m sure very few Mexican-Americans would call a native Castillian or Andalusian “brother”. Face it, “Hispanics” are Native Americans, tainted by European blood who happen to speak Spanish. No other Iberian need apply. I doubt seriously whether Benjamin Cardozo would have checked “Hispanic” on a census form.

The translation of the Roman name for the Iberian peninsula is Hispania which included the area of Portugal.  So technically Portuguese, though they may not like it, are Hispanics.  However, today the label Hispanic is used to denote those people who speak Spanish or derive from countries ruled at one time by Spain, which again includes Portugal.  So technically, Cardozo is Hispanic.  Whether he would today refer to himself as such is open to argument.

ardee:
Well, since the constitution hasn’t changed, why would you think decisions based on it would?

Much ado about nothing? While appointing the first Hispanic to the high court ( sorry blackspeare, I fear you are incorrect) and the third woman, is an event worthy of noting, I doubt we will see much in the way of revolutionary change in that Court’s decisions.

Most Portuguese or Brazilians I know explicitly DENY they are Hispanic since they don’t descend from Spaniards, and don’t speak Spanish, nor did their forebears. It’s like calling Ukrainians “Russians”.  Different people, different language.

truedigger3: The corporations obviously had the better cases. Get over it.

Another consumate corporate lawyer/judge is joining the supreme court.
In almost all of her cases where an individual or individuals sued a corporation, the corporaton won.
All that mumbo jumbo about racist/wise/latina and Democrats against Republicans etc.. etc is nothing but bullshitting and theatrics.

Sotomayor is not the first Hispanic justice——Benjamin Cardozo was——he was of Portuguese descent.