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President Obama Picks Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court by Gizem Unsalan May 26, 2009 |
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This morning, President Barack Obama announced judge Sonia Sotomayor of the federal appeals court is his pick to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court.
If the Senate confirms President Obama’s appointment, Judge Sotomayor, 54, would be the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
According to The Advocate, Lambda Legal will not endorse Sotomayor until after the Senate confirms her position, if the LGBT legal organization chooses to endorse her at all. “It would have been great to have an open LGBT person be considered,” legal director Jon W. Davidson told The Advocate, “but this is a step in the right direction. We are pleased Obama has named a woman of color for his first Supreme Court nomination.”
One of the openly gay candidates rumored to be considered for the position was Kathleen M. Sullivan, former dean of Stanford Law School.
The Human Rights Campaign, on the other hand, praised President Obama's choice for the Supreme Court. “We applaud President Obama for choosing Judge Sonia Sotomayor to become our nation’s next U.S. Supreme Court Justice,” HRC president Joe Solmonese said. “The U.S. Supreme Court decides cases that intimately affect the lives of all Americans. We are confident that Judge Sotomayor has a demonstrated understanding and commitment to protecting the liberty and equality of all Americans.”
Judge Sotomayor, whom President Obama called “an inspiring woman” who had “the wisdom accumulated by an inspiring life’s journey,” was raised in a Bronx public housing project. She also suffered the death of her father when she was nine years old and was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. Sotomayor then went on to win a scholarship to Princeton University and, after graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, she attended Yale Law School. The judge then worked as a prosecutor and a civil litigator before President George H. W. Bush appointed her to the United States District Court for the southern district of New York in 1992. In 1998, President Bill Clinton appointed Sotomayor to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
After the announcement, Sotomayor thanked President Obama for what she called “the most humbling honor of [her] life.”
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