Sen. Cornyn's Sotomayor Straw Man
Judge Sotomayor can't "continue to believe" something if she never actually believed it in the first place.
Over at The Hill's "Congress Blog," Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) writes:
The Supreme Court's reversal in Ricci v. DeStefano raises the question of whether Judge Sotomayor continues to believe that New Haven should have been allowed to discriminate against the firefighters on the basis of race.
But Cornyn's premise is all wrong. The Supreme Court's decision does not raise "the question of whether Judge Sotomayor continues to believe that New Haven should have been allowed to discriminate...on the basis of race" because, in fact, she never believed that. Rather, she ruled that New Haven's actions didn't constitute discrimination in the first place.
Yesterday, four white Supreme Court justices agreed with Sotomayor's interpretation. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Ginsburg wrote, "the Court pretends that '[t]he City rejected the test results solely because the higher scoring candidates were white.'" So, apparently, does Senator Cornyn.
