confirmation hearing

For a comedian-turned-politician with no formal legal training, the newest senator and Judiciary Committee member, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) asked Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor some of the most complex but elucidating questions about Supreme Court cases we’ve heard yet. After bonding with Sotomayor over their mutual love of the Perry Mason show as kids, [...]

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is a former State Supreme Court judge.  So it’s hard to believe that he really doesn’t understand what judges do. Yet that’s exactly what his line of questioning to Judge Sonia Sotomayor on day three of her confirmation hearing this morning suggested.
Here’s Cornyn, speaking to Sotomayor with a tone of severe [...]

If you just started watching Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing during the statement of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), you might think you’d stumbled on a debate over semiotics rather than a Supreme Court confirmation hearing.
“I’m deeply concerned by your assertion that the law is uncertain,” said Coburn. “We want justice to be predictable. I’m worried that [...]

Ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), following the introduction of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor by Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), warned that empathy is prejudice, identity is discrimination, and every statement ever made by a nominee can and will be used against her.

The news is already abuzz with the start of the confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s first nominee to the United States Supreme Court.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is getting all sorts of suggested questions from law professors today, ranging from the role of federalism in our constitutional system (from Stanford law prof — [...]

The firefighter/plaintiff of the New Haven, Conn., affirmative action case is on the minority’s witness list for next week’s hearings on Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court. If nothing else, it’ll set up a TV-friendly “battle” with the nominee. And it marks a change from June, when Ricci’s attorney refused to say what her [...]

MSNBC is reporting that the Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings are set to begin July 13.

A former military interrogator who contributed to the manhunt for a senior Iraqi terrorist has urged the Senate Armed Services Committee staff to question Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal on what he knew about detainee abuse committed by troops in Iraq under his command.

Dawn Johnsen could face a difficult confirmation battle to head the Office of Legal Counsel, if Republicans like Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania are intent on painting the Indiana University law professor as a radical left-wing ideologue.
Specter’s staff has obviously been digging into the right-wing media, because at her confirmation hearing today, the senator brought [...]