Of course where does one go to find out things? Wikipedia, okay so it is the new Encyclopedia Britanica, and it might not always be 100% accurate, but it's easy to check it's sources, and for this article they seem sound. Here is what I found out about Judge Sotomayor.
Over her ten years on the circuit court, Sotomayor has heard appeals in more than 3,000 cases and has written about 380 opinions where she was in the majority.[9] The Supreme Court reviewed five of those, reversing three and affirming two[9]—not high numbers for an appellate judge of that many years[14] and a typical percentage of reversals.[98]
Sotomayor's circuit court rulings have led to her being considered a political centrist by the ABA Journal[61][99] and other sources and organizations.[61][78][99][100][101][102] Several lawyers, legal experts, and news organizations identify her as someone who has liberal inclinations.[103][104][105] In any case, the Second Circuit's caseload typically skews more toward business and securities law rather than hot-button social or constitutional issues.[14] Sotomayor has tended to write narrowly formed rulings that rely upon close application of the law rather than import general philosophical viewpoints.[14] A Congressional Research Service analysis found that Sotomayor's rulings defied easy ideological categorization, but did show an adherence to precedent, an emphasis on the facts of a case, and an avoidance of overstepping the circuit court's judicial role.[106] Unusually, Sotomayor reads through all the supporting documents of cases under review; her lengthy rulings explore every aspect of a case and tend to feature leaden, ungainly prose.[107] Some legal experts have said that the attention to detail and re-examining of facts of a case in her rulings came close to overstepping the traditional role of appellate judges.[108]
Across some 150 cases involving business and civil law, Sotomayor's rulings are generally unpredictable and do not represent consistently pro-business or anti-business tendencies.[109] Sotomayor's influence in the federal judiciary, as measured by the number of citations of her rulings by other judges and in law review articles, has increased significantly during the length of her appellate judgeship and has been greater than that of some other prominent federal appeals court judges.[110] Two academic studies have shown that the percentage of Sotomayor's decisions that override policy decisions by elected branches is the same as or lower than that of other circuit judges.[111]
With all of Pat's worries that she wouldn't be there for the white man, I was shocked to read this, again from wikipedia,
In Pappas v. Giuliani (2002),[125] Sotomayor dissented from her colleagues’ ruling that the New York Police Department could terminate an employee from his desk job who sent racist materials through the mail. Sotomayor argued that the First Amendment protected speech by the employee “away from the office, on [his] own time,” even if that speech was "offensive, hateful, and insulting," and that therefore the employee's First Amendment claim should have gone to trial rather than being dismissed on summary judgment.[126]
Although I agree, but hate to agree, one would think that she wouldn't have dissented based on the rhetoric used by the GOP against her. It's amazing to me how many lies the news and journalist can spread with out ever having to check their facts, apologias, or at least tell the whole story. It's lies by omission, lies by ignorance, and lies by ineptitude.
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