Sonia Sotomayor on Felon's Right to Vote

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's first Supreme Court nominee, wrote the dissent on a decision rendered by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Hayden v. Pataki. New York state inmates filed a lawsuit "claiming that because blacks and Latinos make up a disproportionate share of the prison population, the state's refusal to allow them ballot access amounts to an unlawful, race-based denial of their right to vote.

Sonia Sotomayor

Judge Jose Cabranes wrote the majority decision in favor of the state of New York and against the "criminal felons." Eight members of the Second Circuit voted against Hayden in the case. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals rendered the same decision in a similar case. Sotomayor wrote the dissent. According to a Washington Times editorial:

In a remarkably dismissive, four-paragraph opinion, she alleged that the "plain terms" of the Voting Rights Act would allow such race-based claims to go forward.

Judge Cabranes' decision in favor of the state was backed up with this:

Particularly compelling is the fact that the Voting Rights Act was passed to help further the aims of the Constitution's 14th and 15th Amendments. The 14th Amendment specifically allows states to deny the vote to those convicted of crimes.

So, essentially, Sotomayor's dissent said that Congress could:

...prohibit New York from doing something the Constitution itself specifically endorses.

Incredible! More from the editorial:

It's as if she thinks black and Hispanic felons are convicted in order to deny them the vote, rather than that they are denied the vote as a result of being duly convicted. Her position ignores the fact that it is the convicts' own actions, their crimes - not any state-based racial discrimination - that make those felons ineligible to vote.

Remember this supposedly single quote from Sonia Sotomayor?

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

The White House says if Sotomayor had the opportunity, she would have used other words. Nope, apparently not. She has repeated the same or given a version of the same over and over. As Hot Air says:

Evidently, the idea that her biology makes her a superior judge has been with her for decades.

The woman believes the death penalty is "racist" and "against humanist thinking," and she believes felons should have the right to vote. We should begin hearing some strong objections to her nomination coming out of Congress this week. Right?