NEW SUPREME COURT JUSTICE

Conservatives are concerned that Sonia Sotomayor — President Barack Obama's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court — will indulge her Left-wing policy preferences instead of neutrally interpreting the law.

"From what we know about her, Judge Sotomayor considers policy-making to be among a judge’s roles, no matter what the law says," said Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst at Focus on the Family Action. "She disregards the notion of judicial impartiality."

Sotomayor admits that she applies her feelings and personal politics when deciding cases. In a 2001 speech at Berkeley, she said she believes it is appropriate for judges to consider their "experiences as women and people of color," which she believes should "affect our decisions." She went on to say in that same speech: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

At Duke Law School in 2005, she stated that the "Court of Appeals is where policy is made."

Hausknecht said: "The president's professed desire for judges with 'empathy' rather than impartiality might deny the country what the Founding Fathers intended and wrote into the Constitution — judges who dispense justice without regard for the status of any party that comes before them."

President George H.W. Bush appointed Sotomayor to the district court for the Southern District of New York in 1991. President Bill Clinton nominated her to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998. Source: http://www.citizenlink.org/