SCOTUS Nominee Sonia Sotomayor Connection with Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund

Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, held a special blogger conference call today to discuss the upcoming hearings on President Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy has scheduled the hearings to begin on July 13th, but Republicans believe that it’s important to take the time needed to look at Judge Sotomayor’s full record, rather than rush to meet arbitrary deadlines for a vote on her nomination.

To that end, Sen. Sessions wrote a letter to the White House last week asking about the 300 boxes of documents concerning Sotomayor’s time at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund that hadn’t yet been made available to the committee. There are now some interesting press reports coming out about her time with the PRLDF that are worth reading.

Sen. Sessions discussed the the important issue of Judge Sotomayor relationship with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF).

--PRLDEF is an activist legal organization that has taken highly controversial positions on a wide range of legal issues, including in cases remarkably similar to the New Haven Firefighters case.

--From 1980 through 1992, Judge Sotomayor served in a variety of leadership roles in PRLDEF, including Chairperson of the Litigation and Education Committees.

--According to the New York Times: “[f]or 12 years she was a top policy maker on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund,” and was an “involved and ardent supporter of their various legal efforts,” “frequently meeting with the legal staff to review the status of cases.” J. Hoffman, A Breakthrough Judge: What She Always Wanted, The New York Times, Sept. 22, 1992.

--Also from the New York Times: “…Ms. Sotomayor stood out, frequently meeting with the legal staff to review the status of cases, several former members said. . . . And so across her 12 years on the board . . . she played an active role as the defense fund staked out aggressive stances on issues like police brutality, the death penalty and voting rights.” Hernandez and D. Chen, Nominee’s Links With Advocates Fuel Her Critics, The New York Times, May 29, 2009.

--As has been widely reported, Judge Sotomayor ruled against the New Haven Firefighters and sided with the City of New Haven’s decision to throw out their promotions. Judge Sotomayor did not provide a legal rationale for her decision. But, Judge Sotomayor was Chairperson of the PRLDEF’s Litigation Committee in 1987 when its active litigation docket included the following cases that may shed light on her judicial approach:

In Hispanic Society of the Department of Sanitation v. N.Y.C. Dep’t of Sanitation, the Fund represented the plaintiffs “in regard to a claim that the Supervisor Examination has a severe disparate impact upon Hispanic test-takers.” In support of its claim, the report noted that “Hispanics comprised 5.2% of the test-takers and only 3.8% of the passers[.]”

In Hispanic Police Society v. New York City Police Department, PRLDEF represented Hispanic police officers “challenging the examination of sergeant in the New York City Police Department as discriminatory and not job related.” Following discovery, the parties entered into a settlement that “provid[ed] for positions of sergeant consistent with the percentage of Hispanic test-takers.” To do so, the officers in question had to be advanced beyond others with higher scores.

In Hispanic Police Society v. New York City Civil Service Commission, PRLDEF represented the plaintiffs in a “Title VII employment discrimination case challenging the validity of the examination for lieutenant in the New York City Police Department.” The report indicated that the parties entered into a settlement “allowing plaintiffs the opportunity to participate in the preparation of a new lieutenant’s test.”

-- Judge Sotomayor supported the Fund’s efforts to oppose reinstatement of the death penalty in New York. The Fund based its opposition on factors including world opinion, the “inhuman psychological burden” it places on offenders, and the “evident racism” with which it is associated.

--The Fund has filed numerous briefs on abortion-related cases before the Supreme Court, and has consistently argued that it “opposes any efforts to overturn or in any way restrict the rights recognized in Roe v. Wade.” PRLDEF has also argued aggressively against limitations on the public funding of abortions.

--When New York Mayor David Dinkins criticized members of a radical Puerto Rican nationalist group and called them “assassins” because they shot members of Congress, the Fund criticized not the assassins, but the mayor. The President of PRLDEF, at a time when Judge Sotomayor was an active leader of the organization, claimed that it “lacked sensitivity” to call those individuals “assassins.” He also explained that for many people in Puerto Rico, these men were fighters for freedom and justice.

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