Flashback: GOP attempted to block Sotomayor in 1998

hotair.com ^ | May 26, 2009 | Ed Morrissey

[Free ThinkerNY]

Almost eleven years ago, the GOP saw Judge Sonia Sotomayor as a potential Supreme Court nominee and tried a pre-emption strategy to derail her from that path. Bill Clinton nominated her to the Court of Appeals in 1998, and Trent Lott — then Senate Majority Leader — delayed her confirmation as a way to set a marker of opposition to Sotomayor if Clinton had any thoughts of promoting her. The New York Times reported on the effort at the time (via Yid with Lid):

But Republican senators have been blocking Judge Sotomayor’s elevation to the appeals court for a highly unusual reason: to make her less likely to be picked by Mr. Clinton for the Supreme Court, senior Republican Congressional aides said in interviews.

The delay of a confirmation vote on Judge Sotomayor to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, based in New York, is an example of the intense and often byzantine political maneuverings that take place behind the scenes in many judicial nominations. Several elements of the Sotomayor case are odd, White House officials and Democrats in Congress say, but the chief one is the fact that there is no vacancy on the Supreme Court, and no firm indication that there will be one soon. Nor is there any evidence of a campaign to put Judge Sotomayor under consideration for a seat if there were a vacancy.

Judge Sotomayor’s nomination was approved overwhelmingly by the Senate Judiciary Committee in March. Of the judicial nominees who have cleared the committee in this Congress, she is among those who have waited the longest for a final vote on the floor.

[Defiant]

A GOP Senate couldn’t even block this tyrant from the appeals court. Now they will fawn all over her so they can get some crumbs from the WaPo.