Senate Set to Begin Sotomayor Debate
The Senate will be heading into debate Tuesday over the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
Though most Republicans have lined up against President Obama's pick, Sotomayor is on track to becoming the first Hispanic and third female justice by the end of this week.
Still, conservative Americans are being urged to contact their senators before this week's full Senate vote.
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"Despite her compelling personal story, we remain unconvinced that Judge Sotomayor would apply the law with blind justice as required by the Constitution," commented Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy arm, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
"There are simply too many alarming rulings from her time as a lower court judge-from discriminating on the basis of race to achieve a predetermined racial outcome to censoring a pastor's religious expression of Bible verses on a billboard to denying private property rights in two significant cases," he added.
If confirmed this week, Sotomayor, 55, is not expected to alter the court's ideological balance as she would replace retiring Justice David Souter, a liberal named by a Republican president.
Still, conservative leaders fear that she will bring bias to the bench, pointing to a few rulings in which they argue she showed disregard for gun rights, property rights and job discrimination claims by white employees.
"Simply put, she is out of the mainstream of the American public and too often of the very court for which she is being considered," Land concluded.
