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The ACORN Doesn’t Fall Far
Posted By Jennifer Rubin On July 2, 2009 @ 12:40 PM In Contentions | 12 Comments
Below the surface of the daily news coverage, Senate Republicans have been struggling to get documents from PRLDEF, the liberal civil rights group in which Sotomayor held a variety of leadership positions for a dozen years. It seems odd, at first blush, that there should be a tussle over a group whose public positions on a variety of issues are well known and in which Sotomayor played such a central leadership role. Why fight over boxes of old letters and legal briefs? At first, many speculated that this might have been problematic because it would feed the racial preference storyline and breathe new life into the “wise Latina” remakrs. But maybe it is far more explosive.
Roll Call [1]buries the lede on this one:
The PRLDEF on Tuesday turned over a number of documents that could become political flash points, including papers on the organization’s work with the nonprofit Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now during Sotomayor’s time with the PRLDEF. ACORN has become a major rallying cry for conservatives after allegations that its organizers falsified voter registration forms in the 2008 election. The mere mention of ACORN in association with Sotomayor — regardless of how significant her involvement with the group was — will almost certainly intensify opposition to her high court installment from conservatives on and off Capitol Hill.
Ya think? Well that would be problematic.
And as for any suggestion that Sotomayor wasn’t all that connected to the group? Hogwash. Her questionnaire lists her various posts: “Member and Vice President, Board of Directors Chairperson, Litigation and Education Committees.” The New York Daily News [2] describes her as taking on “an increasing amount of leadership on the Board” in the 1980s. The New York Times [3]reported:
“She just believed in the mission,” Luis Alvarez, a former chairman of its board, said of Ms. Sotomayor. “This was a highly refined group of individuals who came from the premier academic institutions. It was almost like Camelot. It was a wonderful growth period.”
But Ms. Sotomayor stood out, frequently meeting with the legal staff to review the status of cases, several former members said. And so across her 12 years on the board — she left when she was appointed a federal judge in 1992 — she played an active role as the defense fund staked out aggressive stances on issues like police brutality, the death penalty and voting rights.
The board monitored all litigation undertaken by the fund’s lawyers, and a number of those lawyers said Ms. Sotomayor was an involved and ardent supporter of their various legal efforts during her time with the group.
This is all the more reason to insist on a complete and thorough review of the PRLDEF documents. What did Sotomayor do for PRLDEF, what is the “mission” she believed in, and why is the organization now playing interference for her? Good questions for the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Article printed from Commentary: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs
URL to article: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/72071
URLs in this post:
[1] Roll Call : http://www.rollcall.com/news/36406-1.html
[2] New York Daily News: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/05/26/2009-05-26_day_of_pride_for_latinos_across_us.html#ixzz0HwPmHfPE&D
[3] New York Times : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/us/politics/29puerto.html?_r=1
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12 Comments To "The ACORN Doesn’t Fall Far"
#1 Comment By FIGMO JOHN On July 2, 2009 @ 1:36 PM
Thats the spirit, Jenny!! So what if she left the group 17 years ago? She still advised THOSE PEOPLE about how to comply with the law!!!!!
#2 Comment By FIGMO JOHN (SOTTO VOCE) On July 2, 2009 @ 2:47 PM
Could I really be as stupid as I sound?
#3 Comment By FIGMO JOHN On July 2, 2009 @ 3:02 PM
Getting all the way down to the level of the post does require a whole lot of stupid.
#4 Comment By FIGMO JOHN (SOTTO VOCE) On July 2, 2009 @ 4:25 PM
I am as stupid as I sound!!!
#5 Comment By From Inwood On July 2, 2009 @ 6:25 PM
FIGMent Of My Imagination
Gosh, I knew, I just knew that there was someone out there other than card-carrying members of the VWRC who always deplored the quotidian repetitive criticism of Republican SCOTUS nominees beginning with Bork (which criticism, unlike Ms Rubin’s, was generally insubstantial & baseless). Somehow, Diogenes, I can never find this guy in a Google search.
Sio you kiss-off the evidence of her early work by saying “She still advised THOSE PEOPLE about how to comply with the law!!!!!”
[Do you think that five exclamation marks will make your point?]
Um, seems that, based on her kiss-off of Ricci’s valid & legal claim of reverse discrimination, she probably advised them how to get racial quotas and preferences in spite of the law (you know, the Civil Rights Act, or do I now need five exclamation marks to reach you, here?).
How do I make such a claim without having seen the contents of these boxes? By the content of her character. By her reflexively, mindlessly saying to herself (since she couldn’t be bothered to give us or Ricci the courtesy of spelling her racism out) something like “Gee this is the sort of reverse racism I’ve urged all my life; it’s a no-brainer that the results of any promotion exam must be ignored when no Black firefighter made the cut, & so, of course, I affirm without bothering to, you know, actually writing an opinion here, the trial court’s & the City’s employment of the initiatives necessary to overcome the White Male’s, um, inconvenient words in his Civil Rights Act without giving it a thought. Ya want thought? Don’t need no stinkin’ thought here; don’t need no stinkin’ judges like Judge Carbanes here wearing the White Male robes imposing on my Wise Latina Woman’s freedom. ..!”
#6 Comment By ✰4th of August Happy Birthday Obamerica✰ On July 2, 2009 @ 6:29 PM
Figgy is the banned fust-er who goes postal over this subject.
#7 Comment By From Inwood On July 2, 2009 @ 10:23 PM
4th of Aug # 6
Except here Figment as troll is reflexively restating the MSM & DNC party line so it’s worth answering & anyway I had to explain it to my friends who still listen to or read the MSM.
Urban Legend taking hold: Soutermayor would simply have decided as Souter did; nothing to see here, let’s move on.
Interesting take: Souter, a Wise Latina Woman. Who knew?
#8 Comment By elixelx On July 3, 2009 @ 4:26 AM
A judge was about to step off a ferry into a patch of boggy ground when a man threw his cloak, gallantly, over the puddle saving the judge’s blushes and boots. Later that day that same man was a plaintiff in a case before the judge–WHO PROMPTLY RECUSED HIMSELF!
A judge recognised a man standing in front of him as the accused in a case of robbery as the same man who used to deliver fresh bread every morning to his family many years before and always had a treat or two for the judge’s kids in his pockets. THE JUDGE RECUSED HIMSELF!
A JUDGE RECUSED HIMSELF from ALL his Wednesday hearings because a fruit vendor, who usually delivered to the judge’s wife on Wednesdays, delivered on Tuesday, and told the wife that he had a case coming up before her husband the very next day. She reported this to her husband who disqualified himself from all cases the next day because he DID NOT KNOW what the vendor looked like and would not be able to recuse himself once the vendor had identified his profession and the case had started!
These, folks, are the Ethics of the Fathers. I wonder if they will ever be the Ethics of the Latinas!
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#10 Comment By FIGMO JOHN On July 4, 2009 @ 12:02 AM
I’m sorry Janus for failing to go postal in a more prompt manner, but I’ve just been so upset from finding out what those horrible Hondurans have been up to in Alaska.
#11 Pingback By Sotomayor Connected To ACORN? Read! « Romanticpoet’s Weblog On July 4, 2009 @ 9:08 AM
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#12 Pingback By Commentary » Blog Archive » Is She Fudging On PRLDEF? On July 14, 2009 @ 4:57 PM
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