May 27, 2009: Supreme Court Nominee’s Remarks on Ethnic Influence Similar to Those of Conservative Nominee in 2006

Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald notes that in 2006, conservative Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito (see October 31, 2005 - February 1, 2006) made remarks about his ethnic identity influencing his decisions from the bench that are strikingly similar to those made in 2001 by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor (see October 26, 2001 and May 26, 2009). Sotomayor is being called a “racist” by conservatives based on her remarks (see May 26, 2009, May 26, 2009, May 27, 2009, and May 28, 2009). In 2006, as Greenwald notes, Alito told the Senate Judiciary Committee: “[W]hen a case comes before me involving, let’s say, someone who is an immigrant—and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases—I can’t help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn’t that long ago when they were in that position. And so it’s my job to apply the law. It’s not my job to change the law or to bend the law to achieve any result. But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, ‘You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country.‘… When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.” Greenwald writes, “Anyone who is objecting now to Sotomayor’s alleged ‘empathy’ problem but who supported Sam Alito and never objected to this sort of thing ought to have their motives questioned (and the same is true for someone who claims that a person who overcame great odds to graduate at the top of their class at Princeton, graduate Yale Law School, and then spent time as a prosecutor, corporate lawyer, district court judge, and appellate court judge must have been chosen due to ‘identity politics’).” [Washington Post, 1/11/2006; Salon, 5/27/2009]