Supreme Court pick Sotomayor under fire for comments
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Jeff Sessions — the top Republican on the Senate committee that will grill Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor— knows what it is like to be on the other side of the witness table.
Two decades ago, he was a judicial nominee fielding questions from senators about allegations of racial insensitivity and, ultimately, failing to win confirmation. Sessions said his experience means he will give Sotomayor plenty of time to defend herself and explain her judicial philosophy.
"I don't approve of springing charges against a nominee in a way that gives them little opportunity to respond and that are actually distortions of their record," the Alabama senator said in an interview Thursday.
Still, Sessions indicated he will not shy away from controversy. He said Sotomayor needs to explain what she meant in 2001, when she said: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Sessions called the statement "troubling."
"The American people need an answer before she goes on the bench as to exactly what she meant by that," Sessions said. "It's on its face a troubling statement. It goes against the idea of color-blind justice."
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday that Sotomayor's statement was being taken out of context. "I think she's talking about the unique experiences that she has," he said.
Questions about race surrounded the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings in 1985 and 1986 on Sessions' nomination to the federal bench by President Reagan.
Four Justice Department lawyers who worked with Sessions testified he made a series of racially insensitive statements, according to committee transcripts.
Sessions testified, for example, he was joking when, during the prosecution of two Ku Klux Klansmen for killing a black man, he said he had respect for the Klan until he found out some members of the white supremacist group smoked marijuana.
"I felt that things were taken out of context, that allegations were disseminated and picked up in the media, and the refutations of those allegations never got the same print," Sessions said.
Sessions' background could provide an opening for Democratic critics if he goes on the attack against Sotomayor, says Trevor Parry-Giles, a University of Maryland political communication expert who wrote a 2006 book on the Supreme Court nomination process. "He's at a disadvantage because if he does appear overly aggressive or ungracious, then it will all be read through the lens of his prior issues, not only the racial insensitivity but the simple fact he was a nominee rejected by the committee," Parry-Giles said. "He has to define his role very carefully, based on his past history."
Sessions hasn't shown any hard feelings, said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a former committee chairman. "I've never seen any vindictiveness, never seen any indication he holds that against them," Hatch said.
The 62-year-old former prosecutor and U.S. attorney became the ranking Republican on the committee after Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania switched parties.
Known as a conservative, Sessions scored 84 on the American Conservative Union's congressional ranking system last year, placing him among the group's 20 "Senate standouts."