NAACP Strong Support for the Nomination of Sonia Sotomayor’s Nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court

WHEREAS, on Monday, May 26, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice David Souter; and

WHEREAS, the daughter of immigrant parents (her father, a tool-and-die worker with a third-grade education, died when she was nine years old; her mother, a nurse, raised Judge Sotomayor and her brother on a very modest salary), she grew up in the housing projects in the Bronx. She went on to graduate from Princeton University summa cum laude in 1976, and then from Yale Law School (where she was the editor of the law journal) in 1979; and

WHEREAS, after law school Judge Sotomayor got a job as an assistant district attorney in New York City, where she prosecuted cases involving police brutality, murder, child pornography and assaults. After a time in private practice, she was nominated in 1991 by President George H. Bush to serve as a federal judge for the U.S. District Court, southern District of New York. Six years later, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to serve as an appellate judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where she has served since 1998; and

WHEREAS, Judge Sotomayor has been a prosecutor, private litigator, trial judge, and appellate judge. No one currently on the Court has that complete package of experience. If confirmed for the Supreme Court, Judge Sotomayor would bring more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice in 100 years, and more overall judicial experience than anyone confirmed for the Court in the past 70 years; and

WHEREAS, a thorough review of Judge Sotomayor's record shows that she is an intelligent jurist with mainstream values and an even temperament. Her 17 years on the federal bench show that she takes an impartial and balanced approach to the cases before her, and that she is above all fair.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the NAACP does support and strongly endorse the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that the NAACP calls on the entire United States Senate to quickly confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court.