Group Sotomayor Belonged to Sued Over Job Tests

Democrats call the group, now known as LatinoJustice PRLDEF, mainstream, and argue that most of the material has nothing to do with Sotomayor.

FILE - This June 2, 2009 file photo shows Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Capitol Hill in...

FILE - This June 2, 2009 file photo shows Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Capitol Hill in Washington. The top Republican on the Senate committee that will consider Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination says a Puerto Rican civil rights group's papers could shed light on her judicial approach, particularly her view of racial preferences in hiring. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

(AP)

"Before this request, we already had a more public and complete picture of Judge Sotomayor than for previous nominees," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary chairman, said in a statement. "This well-respected civil rights advocacy organization has cooperated and made an extensive effort to review decades-old records, most of which have no connection to Judge Sotomayor, to provide even more information to the committee,"

The materials give little insight into Sotomayor's role in the organization's activities, even while she chaired the board's litigation committee. They do suggest, however, that Sotomayor and other board members were involved in making sure the cases PRLDEF handled were in keeping with its mission statement and were having an impact, according to a memo she wrote in June 1987.

The document said the board had asked the litigation committee she chaired to address "case development and litigation strategic planning," as well as the fund's mission statement and the structure of its legal department. But there's no mention in the voluminous files of what the committee ultimately recommended on those topics, and no sign that Sotomayor ever weighed in on any specific case or issue.

In addition to the job discrimination lawsuits, the material details cases PRLDEF handled on Hispanic voting suppression, bilingual education and housing, among others. In one such suit, Puerto Rican residents sought to stop the establishment of a rental community in Brooklyn for predominantly white, low-income elderly tenants on the grounds it wasn't being made available to the area's mostly minority residents.

The documents also reveal that PRLDEF joined a coalition of civil rights group to lobby Congress to override a 1989 Supreme Court decision that made it more difficult for people to prevail in job discrimination suits. In 1991, Congress passed legislation that essentially nullified the case's precedent. Many legal analysts believe the recent Ricci ruling again created new barriers to such suits.