In a move that nobody could have ever predicted, 150+ right-wing activists have signed on to a letter to the Senate opposing the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court:
156 conservative and constitutional cause leaders and citizens have signed a letter to members of the U.S. Senate expressing opposition to the confirmation of President Obama’s nominee to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
One of the letter’s signers, Richard A. Viguerie, said, “The media and Republicans aren’t defining President Obama as an extremist politically and constitutionally; therefore, it is up to us conservatives. It is also important that a message be sent that, while Republicans may not be unified in opposing Obama’s dangerous and unconstitutional agenda, conservatives and other constitutionalists are united.”
“President Obama has nominated a radical judicial activist who apparently feels the need to mask her outrageous statements, rulings and writings over the years with the soothing words of a constitutionalist,” said Kay Daly, president of the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary. “Perhaps the Left has discovered that the American people most certainly do not want the Constitution to be radically altered on the whims of empathy. Sotomayor’s extremist actions throughout the years speak far more loudly than the pretty words she spoke at her confirmation hearing. A ‘no’ vote for Sotomayor is a ‘yes’ vote for the Constitution,” Daly said.
…
Among the 156 who signed the letter are: Curt Levey of the Committee for Justice and Manny Miranda of Third Branch; plus: Gary Aldrich, Bob Barr, Morton Blackwell, Brent Bozell, Floyd Brown, KellyAnne Conway, Janice Shaw Crouse, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Elaine Donnelly, Joseph Farah, Alan Gottlieb, Colin Hanna, Andrea Lafferty, Jeffrey Mazzella, Chuck Muth, Tony Perkins, Larry Pratt, William Redpath, Al Regnery, David Ridenour, Ron Robinson, Ilya Shapiro, Rev. Lou Sheldon, Matt Staver, Herb Titus and Wendy Wright.
The letter itself can be found here [PDF]:
We urge the Senate to reject Judge Sotomayor. Judge Sotomayor should remain a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals where her decisions would be subject to the check of the Supreme Court.
President Obama should nominate another candidate whose views of judicial power are demonstrably consistent with Article III of the Constitution. That means the next nominee’s views of the judiciary should be demonstrably inconsistent with the President’s, whose views are not consistent with Article III, even before that nominee’s confirmation hearings.
Given that Manuel Miranda is involved and that this letter is very much in keeping with how he operates, one is inclined to assume that this is another Third Branch Conference effort, though it may not be as neither the letter nor the press release list Miranda or the Conference as organizers, as is normally the case.
Perhaps it is some joint effort among various groups, which seems likely given that Richard Viguerie, Curt Levey of the Committee for Justice, and Kay Daly of the Coalition for a Fair Judicary are all featured and listed as contacts on the press release.
Noticeably, once again nobody from the Judicial Confirmation Network has signed on to the letter, which suggests that JCN either refused to join these activists or continues to be being shunned by them (Miranda recently dismissed them as “an arm of [the] Republican leadership.”)
So despite the fact that, out of every right-wing group trying to rally opposition to Sotomayor, the JCN was by far the most tenacious and high-profile, nobody in this coalition seems to view them as a legitimate force. Instead they align themselves with the likes of Kay Daly and her phony Coalition for a Fair Judiciary, which has been utterly AWOL and did, quite literally, nothing during the entire Sotomayor nomination.
Interesting strategy.
