Marco Rubio: We Need More Scalias

Franklin Graham: Pray For Sotomayor

Franklin Graham has posted the seventh in his Twitter series of daily anti-gay marriage prayers for members of the Supreme Court. Still to come: Breyer and Thomas.

Supreme Selfie

KANSAS: Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

UPDATE: Equality Case Files has the motion.

Fox Contributor Laura Ingraham Attacks "Immigrant" Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Fox News contributor and wingnut radio host Laura Ingraham apparently believes that Puerto Rico is a foreign country.

In a February 3 speech before Yale Law students, Sotomayor commented on the fact that she was the first Supreme Court Justice to use the term "undocumented immigrant," instead of "illegal alien," saying "[t]o call them illegal aliens seemed and does seem insulting to me." Ingraham highlighted Sotomayor's comment on her radio show the following day. Ingraham suggested that using the term "undocumented immigrant" demonstrated a failure of Sotomayor's duty "to defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America." According to Ingraham, the word choice shows that Sotomayor's "allegiance obviously goes to her immigrant family background and not to the Constitution of the United States." Sotomayor is a Puerto Rican American who is both an American citizen and the daughter of American citizens. Puerto Ricans have had U.S. citizenship since President Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act in 1917.

UNRELATED: Ingraham is thought by some to have been the first person to out Matt Drudge.

BREAKING: Utah Attorney General Files Marriage Stay Appeal To Supreme Court

Read the full filing.

UPDATE: Via the Associated Press.

In papers filed Tuesday with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the state asked her to overturn court decisions to let the marriages go forward. Sotomayor handles emergency requests from Utah and other Rocky Mountain states. She can act by herself or get the rest of the court involved. Nearly two-thirds of Utah’s 2.8 million residents are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Mormons dominate the state’s legal and political circles. U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby’s decision on Dec. 20 came as a shock to many in the state, which approved the ban on same-sex marriage in 2004. Since the judge’s decision, more than 900 gay couples in Utah have gotten marriage licenses. Shelby and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have already refused to halt weddings while the state appeals.

UPDATE II: Of course, the debunked Regnerus study is cited.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor To Drop The Times Square Ball On NYE

The Associated Press reports:

The countdown to the new year in Times Square is getting some high-profile help — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The organizers of the annual celebration announced Sunday that Sotomayor will lead the final 60-second countdown and push the ceremonial button to signal the descent of the Times Square New Year's Eve ball. Sotomayor was appointed to the court in 2009. She is a native of the Bronx.

The Tea People will find a way to complain about this.

Utah Delays Marriage Appeal To SCOTUS

Many had expected Utah to rush their emergency stay request to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor first thing this morning. But not so.

The attorney general’s office is working to prepare the appeal to the Supreme Court on the 10th Circuit’s denial of a stay. Due to the necessity of coordination with outside counsel the filing of the appeal may be delayed for a few days,” he told FOX 13′s Ben Winslow. “It is the intent of the AG’s office to file with the Supreme Court as soon as possible.” The delay means that same-sex marriages would continue to be performed in Utah until the nation’s top court decides. Justice Sotomayor, who oversees the 10th Circuit and Utah federal courts, could either grant or deny the stay, or she could ask the entire U.S. Supreme Court to decide the issue. An appeal of U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby’s ruling that declared Amendment 3 unconstitutional is still pending in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. If the Supreme Court denies Utah’s request to halt same-sex marriage licenses from being issued, those marriages would continue to happen throughout the appeals process — which could be decided by 2015.

All but one of Utah's 29 counties are issuing same-sex marriage licenses today. In that one tiny county, the clerk is on vacation.

Sonia Sotomayor On Sesame Street

Sotomayor, Part II?

Media Matters reminds us what the right wing put Sonia Sotomayor through before her confirmation to the Supreme Court and wonders if we're about to go through it all again.

Ted Olson Seeks To Overturn Restrictions On Political Speech By Corporations

Mostly-conservative lawyer kingpin Ted Olson, one half of the duo working to bring a pro-marriage equality case before the Supreme Court, returned to his roots yesterday, appearing before SCOTUS (on Justice Sonia Sotomayor's first day on the bench) to argue that laws restricting corporations from making political speech be swept away. Olson's client, a non-profit called Citizens United, has made a blistering film critical of Hillary Clinton.

Chief Justice Roberts and several of the court’s more conservative justices seemed frustrated with the complex state of modern campaign finance law and appeared ready to take bold action. Justice Sotomayor, like some of the court’s more liberal members, seemed inclined to take a narrower approach. “Wouldn’t we be doing some more harm than good,” she asked Floyd Abrams, “by a broad ruling in a case that doesn’t involve more business corporations, and actually doesn’t involve the traditional nonprofit corporation?” “Your honor,” Mr. Abrams responded, “I don’t think you’d be doing more harm than good in vindicating the First Amendment rights here, which transcend that of Citizen United.” Mr. Abrams represented Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader and a longtime foe of campaign finance regulation.

Olson is expected to win his case and U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagen appears ready to concede. What remains to be seen is whether the Court will overturn all bans on political speech by corporations during the 30-day period before elections, or if they will carve out exceptions for non-profits like Citizens United. Kagen holds that all kinds of corporations should not be allowed to spend money to support or oppose political candidates.

Wise Latina Confirmed

Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as the next Supreme Court Justice today in a partisan vote of 68-31. All Democrats approved, as well as nine Republicans. Sen. Ted Kennedy was too ill to be in the chamber. The GOP's ugly smear campaign against Sotomayor may have repercussions in the next election.

From the moment Mr. Obama chose her in May, many political strategists warned Republicans that opposing the first Latina nominated to the Supreme Court would jeopardize the party in future elections. In the waning days of the debate, some Democrats sought to portray Republican opposition as a grave insult to Latinos. “Republicans will pay a price for saying ‘no’ to this judge,” Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said in Spanish at a news conference Wednesday.

Party in the Bronx tonight!

Sotomayor Moves Forward, 13-6

As expected, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was the lone GOP vote for Sonia Sotomayor today, joining a dozen Judiciary Committee Democrats in forwarding her nomination to the full Senate for approval.

Two of the veteran GOP senators who voted against her, Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) and Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), have never before opposed a Supreme Court nominee. The committee's vote was more polarized than its September 2005 vote on the nomination of John G. Roberts Jr., who is now the court's chief justice, when three Democrats joined the panel's Republicans in supporting his confirmation. Tuesday's vote, however, was less divided than the vote on the most recent nominee, Samuel A. Alito Jr., in January 2006, when the panel endorsed him by splitting entirely along party lines.

The full Senate will begin debating Sotomayor's nomination next week.

Maddow: It's Not True, Pat

Context Karma

BAM! Rachel Maddow Slams Pat Buchanan

Pat Buchanan on why 108 of 110 SCOTUS justices have been white:

Pat Buchanan: "White men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close to 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country built basically by white folks, who were 90% of the nation in 1960 when I was growing up and the other 10% were African-Americans who had been discriminated against. That's why."

Rachel Maddow: "I would hope that you would see that picking 108 out of 110 white justices of the Supreme Court means that other people are not being appropriately considered... and the reason we have affirmative action is you recognize that the fact that people were discriminated against for hundreds of years means that you sort of gamed the system unless you give other people a leg up..."

Sotomayor Grilled On Same-Sex Marriage

Sonia Sotomayor says she will look at same-sex marriage "with a completely open mind" and seemed to take offense at any implication that she's already decided on the issue.

NOTE: Argh. I'm trying to transcribe Sotomayor's comments and this C-SPAN player is the pits. This post replaces a previous post that went kerfluey with these C-SPAN players. Let's try again.

(Via - HRC Backstory)

Sotomayor Asked About Marriage

In the third day of her confirmation hearings, Sonia Sotomayor was finally asked about same-sex marriage. But the SCOTUS nominee said she couldn't answer.

The subject was raised indirectly by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). Grassley did not mention same-sex marriage directly, but that was the implication when he asked Sonia Sotomayor about a court ruling that said Minnesota could deny a marriage license to two men. Did she agree, he asked, that the case, Baker vs. Nelson, reserved the question of marriage to the states? In Baker, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that two men could be denied a marriage license because Minnesota law limited marriage to men and women.

As she has with other topics, Sotomayor said she couldn’t comment because questions about marriage are pending in many courts and might reach the Supreme Court. Grassley challenged her on that point. He wondered aloud why she couldn’t comment on Baker because it’s legal precedent. He noted that on Tuesday she said that Roe vs. Wade, which legalized abortion, was an established legal precedent. If she could characterize the status of Roe, he asked, why not Baker? The judge replied that she had not reviewed Baker in some time but offered to review the case overnight and report on it Thursday. Grassley said he would welcome that.

Tomorrow should be interesting.

GOP Senator Does Ricky Ricardo Impression To Sonia Sotomayor

SRSLY. Maybe Sen. Coburn thinks Lucy was married to a Puerto Rican?

Sotomayor's A Terrorist!

Oh, brother. Check out this ad from some nutjob outfit called "The Committee For Justice."

Think Progress responds:

"The claim that Sotomayor led a terrorist organization apparently refers to her service on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, a mainstream civil rights organization. It seems that, in the right-wing mind, a group that protects Latinos from race discrimination is exactly the same as al Qaeda."