Jamie Dupree

Judge Sotomayor's Speeches

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Jamie Dupree
@ June 5, 2009 12:00 AM
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The past speeches of Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor seem likely to give more ammunition to critics already unsettled by her 2001 comment on "wise Latina women judges."

That's because she used that line a number of times in her speeches between 1994 and 2003.

The first that I found was in a 1994 speech in Puerto Rico on "Women in the Judiciary." What is notable about this quote is that it does not emphasize "Latina" - but only gender.

"I would hope that a wise woman with the richness of her experience would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion," Sotomayor said.

This speech is seven years before the 2001 speech that gained so much attention in the last week plus, where she had this to say:

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," the Judge said in 2001.

Going through dozens of pages of speeches, I found a few more examples:

In 1999, she refers to "sister power" in a speech to the Women's Bar Association of New York - "I would hope that a wise woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion."

Princeton Club 2002 - "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion."

Seton Hall 2003 - "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion."

Like I said above, what is most interesting to me is that this stock line started as simply about gender, and then it evolved to include gender and heritage.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not writing this with dramatic music playing in the background, like we've unearthed the smoking gun that's going to doom this nominee.

But it does sort of blow away the excuse that she "misspoke" (quoting the President there) or that she would have said it a different way.

Clearly, she has had this theme in her mind for some time.

It will certainly give her critics something to chew on for the weekend, as they busily search through all the details of her speeches and rulings.

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