Another day, another historic milestone in American politics. Barack Obama, the first black President of the United States, has elected Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only is she female, only to third ever to become a Supreme Court Justice, she’s also Hispanic, the first ever to reach this level in the American judicial system.
Sotomayor is a controversial choice for a couple of reasons – her background, which is bound to be seized upon by the more extreme Republicans, the fact she’s regarded as left wing, and one judgment she made on an abortion case.
Her background shouldn’t matter, obviously, but I guarantee it’ll be brought up in the same way Obama’s was. And she can’t be that left wing because the first President Bush selected her for the District Court.
As for the abortion case, Sotomayor ruled against an abortion rights group when it challenged the ‘Mexico City policy’. With abortion being a hot political potato in the United States I suspect this one decision will prompt some difficult questions for Sotomayor in the coming weeks.
