The State media seems to think the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are harping a little too much on Sonia Sotomayor’s racist tendencies and statements. How soon we forget.
by Michael Naragon
After doing a little virtual digging, I unearthed the transcripts from the hearings on Justice Thomas, which famously degenerated into a Judge Judy-like debacle, with Democrats accusing the Justice of strategic pubic hairs. I have culled some of the highlights (or lowlights) of those hearings in an attempt to refresh the memory of some who may have forgotten who the Democrats are. I have italicized portions of the quotes that I find particularly meaningful.
Patrick Leahy [to Thomas]:
And finally, I’m concerned about some of your ideological views. You’ve wholeheartedly endorsed the statement that America is careening with frightening speed towards a statist-dictatorial system. I can’t accept that, and these words seem more than a little strange as we watch the unfolding drama of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, where countries that truly suffered under statist-dictatorial system threw off their shackles. And when they throw off their shackles, where do they look? They look toward a free and compassionate America as an example of how a democracy is run.
But more disturbingly, your words strike me as the views of a combative hardline ideologue. The last thing I seek in a Supreme Court justice is ideology. I value intelligence and wisdom, compassion, a willingness to listen to all sides of an argument. I want someone on the bench who is going to give every litigant a fair shake without bias or predisposition of any kind. Ideological fervor plays no part in a judicial temperament.
Howard Metzenbaum [to Thomas]:
It would be easy and probably smart politically for senators to vote in favor of this nomination because of Judge Thomas’ personal triumph over adversity. Frankly, I suspect the President and his advisers believe that some senators will do just that. But the Senate must evaluate the nomination based upon the career and record of the nominee, Judge Thomas. The question for this committee is not where does Judge Thomas come from; rather the question for the committee is this: Where would a Justice Thomas take the Supreme Court? …
There are those who suggest that because of his extraordinary background Judge Thomas will bring a different perspective to the Court. That may be true. It also may not be true…
Yet, in speech after speech, Clarence Thomas rails against governmental efforts to aid minorities and the disadvantaged. In one article, Judge Thomas even asserted that it was — quote — “insane” — end of quote — for African-Americans to expect the federal government to help relieve the harmful effect of decades of discrimination.
Arlen Specter [to Thomas]:
But as I read through your writings, Judge Thomas, and take a look at what deference you will give to Constitution process and the Congressional will, as I evaluate your judicial temperament in carrying out Congressional will, I have noted a number of your writings, and this is not an isolation but illustrative of one of your speeches, that you say Congress is no longer primarily a deliberative or even a law-making body. There is little deliberation and even less wisdom in the manner in which the legislative branch conducts its business.
Paul Simon [to Thomas]:
The nominee has, to his great credit, overcome major obstacles to be where he is today. But what about those who have been less fortunate or less able in overcoming obstacles? What does he mean when he writes, and I quote, “I do not see how the government can be compassionate. Only people can be compassionate, and then only with their own money, their own property, or their own effort, not that of others.” End of quote.
I join Judge Thomas in lauding self-help, but not to the exclusion of government’s proper role. Does Judge Thomas mean that we should not have student aid programs, a Head Start program? Does that suggest there is something unconstitutional or morally wrong with government seeing to it that no one falls through the cracks in our health care delivery system? Was government not compassionate when we passed federal legislation outlawing segregation?
[This is a wonderfully obvious illustration of the pseudo-compassion of liberal philosophy. Simon took offense, it seems, at Thomas’ assertion that the government was not compassionate by enslaving millions to its various welfare systems.]
Robert Byrd [in the final recommendation]:
Suppose it’s a divided Court, four to four. That one man will make the difference. Suppose it’s a divided Court and he doesn’t show up for some reason — he doesn’t act on the matter. That tie is in essence a decision in some cases. And his decision will affect millions of Americans — black, white, minorities, the majority, women, men, children, in all aspects of living — social security, workmen’s compensation, whatever it might be that might get to the Supreme Court of the United States. That one man in that instance will have more power than 100 senators — more power in that instance than the President of the United States.
This is not a justice of the peace. This is a man who is being nominated to go on the highest court of the land. Give HIM the benefit of the doubt?! He has no particular right to this seat! No individual has a particular right to a Supreme Court seat! Why give HIM the benefit of the doubt?!
Such an honor of sitting on the Supreme Court of the United States should be reserved for only those who are most qualified and those whose temperament and character best reflect judicial and personal commitments to excellence. A credible charge of the type that has been leveled at Judge Thomas is enough, in my view, to mandate that we ought to look for a more exemplary nominee.
If we’re going to give the benefit of the doubt, let’s give it to the Court. Let’s give it to the country. He who professed, “You may kill me. Look what you’re doing to me — but what you’re doing to my country.” And so I will take that, I’ll accept that.
If Judge Thomas is rejected, he won’t lose his life, he won’t lose his property, he won’t lose his liberty. He’ll go on being a judge on the appellate court, the youngest judge on the Court, driving his car, mowing his grass, going to McDonalds, eating a Big Mac, and living his life — watching his son play football — and I don’t say any of those things pejoratively — of course I prefer to say pee-joratively — I don’t say those things in that sense. But that’s his word. Those are his words.
[For the sake of record, keep in mind that Sen. Byrd is a former Klan member. Using that lens, his words take on new emphasis.]
Ted Kennedy [in the final recommendation]:
[I have reproduced nearly all of Kennedy’s final speech here. It is ridiculous in its assertion, but no more ridiculous than the trumped charges the Democrats made against Justice Thomas. When they found that Thomas would not be bullied or replaced through more civil questioning, they found a willing accomplice to besmirch his character. This simple confirmation hearing became a circus of grandiose proportions, thanks to Kennedy and his ilk. This speech was the pièce de résistance. As you read it, remember that Kennedy himself has been implicated in some scandals of his own, but has not seen fit to remove himself from the U.S. Senate, although Fate now seems poised to do that for him. Notice especially how Kennedy easily interchanges his “indignation” over the sexual harrassment charges with his disgust over conservatism.]
The question before the Senate today is not a referendum on the credibility of Judge Clarence Thomas or of Professor Anita Hill. The issue before us is the fate of the Supreme Court and the Constitution now and for decades to come. It is no secret that I oppose Judge Thomas’ nomination. The extreme views he expressed before his confirmation hearings demonstrate that he lacks a deep commitment to the fundamental Constitutional values at the core of our democracy.
It is hypocritical in the extreme for supporters of Judge Thomas to bitterly criticize the conduct of certain advocacy groups in the controversy over the charges by Professor Hill when it is clear that Judge Thomas was nominated precisely to advance the agenda of the right wing. I oppose any effort by this administration to pack the Supreme Court with justices who will turn back the clock on issues of vital importance for the future of our nation and for the kind of country we want America to be.
[As my dad would say, “Who’s ‘we’? Got a frog in your pocket?”]
But over the past nine days, the debate on this nomination has been transformed and the nation has been transfixed by the charges of sexual harassment made by Professor Anita Hill and by the Judiciary Committee’s hearings into those — these charges over the past weekend. With extraordinary courage and dignity, Professor Hill expressed the pain and anguish experienced by so many women who have been victims of sexual harassment on the job. She described the suffering and the humiliation that a woman encounters when her career and her livelihood are threatened by a supervisor who fills every workday with anxiety about when the next offensive action and the next embarrassing incident will occur.
The hearings on Professor Hill’s charges were exhaustive and they were difficult and painful for all the participants, witnesses and Senators alike. But the hearings educated the country on an issue of great and growing significance. Overnight, as on perhaps no other issue in our history, the entire country made a giant leap of understanding about sexual harassment, that offensive conduct will never be treated lightly again. All women, and all men, too, owe Professor Hill a tremendous debt of gratitude for her willingness to discuss her experience and for the courage and dignity with which she did so…
The struggle for racial justice in its truest sense was meant to wipe out all forms of oppression. No one, least of all Judge Thomas, is entitled to invoke one form of oppression to excuse another. The deliberate, provocative use of a term like lynching is not only wrong in fact, it is a gross misuse of America’s most tragic — most historic tragedy and pain to buy a political advantage.
The Senate today is not passing judgment solely on Judge Thomas or Professor Hill. The Senate is making a fundamental statement about our values and our conscience. Make no mistake about it. We in the Senate are also passing judgment on ourselves. Are we an old boys club, insensitive at best and perhaps something worse? Will we strain to concoct any excuse to impose any burden? To tolerate any unsubstantiated attack on a woman in order to rationalize a vote for this nomination? Will we refuse to heed the rights and claims of the majority of Americans who are women, but who are so much a minority in this chamber? What kind of Senate are we?
Because if we cannot listen and respond to this woman, as credible as she is, with the significant corroboration she offers, then what message are we sending to women across America. What American woman in the future will dare to come forward? There is not proof that Anita Hill has perjured herself, and shame on anyone who suggests that she has.
Here in the Senate and in the nation we need to establish a different, better, higher standard. When confronted with all of the evidence that corroborates Professor Hill’s charges, Judge Thomas’ supporters abandoned the craven charge that she had concocted the story in recent weeks. Instead they resorted to the meanest and most unfounded cut of all — that this tenured law professor, who testified with such grace and dignity, is delusional — that somehow — that she somehow fantasized the entire horrible experience. That baseless charge is an insult to Professor Hill and to the millions of American women who have been the victims of sexual harassment…
And in this case, the person charged by Professor Hill with sexual harassment was not only the head of the agency which he worked, but the federal official with the chief responsibility for enforcing the laws of the United States against sexual harassment.
Judge Thomas and his supporters have pointed with outrage to the harm that these hearings have done to him, but what about the harm that was done to Professor Hill? And I am not talking only about the Senate proceedings that she was so reluctant to set in motion, I am talking about the two years of harm that she endured because of this harassment. I am talking about the eight years more of harm that she endured because of the silence she was forced to accept in a society that has been hostile to such claims for so long. It’s never been easy for any woman to bring a charge of sexual harassment.
Attitudes are changing in our society. Our national consciousness has been raised by the events of recent days, and the lesson of these changes should be a part of the conscious of the Supreme Court, too.
I wonder, in this day and age, whether women are prepared to sit still while the United States puts Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court of the United States. The Senate shot itself in the foot last week, let us not shoot ourselves in the other foot today. We all know what happened last Monday and Tuesday, when Anita Hill’s press conference in Oklahoma launched a tidal wave of anger by women across America. They were outraged because the Bush administration and the Republican leadership in the Senate stubbornly persisted in trying to force a vote on the Thomas nomination without even hearing Professor Hill’s serious charges of sexual harassment.
Today, therefore, it will not be easy to vote against Anita Hill. All America has seen her face to face in their living rooms. Wives are talking to their husbands, daughters are talking to fathers, sisters are talking to brothers. They saw what we saw. They saw a courageous woman who seemed to be speaking for all women, a tenured professor of law with a successful career. She had nothing to gain and everything to lose by coming forward. Under great pressure she testified with surprising grace and extraordinary dignity. Her testimony was corroborated by four eloquent and persuasive witnesses.
Though there is forceful testimony from Judge Thomas’ supporters, all of the acknowledged that they had no personal knowledge about whether Professor Hill was telling the truth or not, and I believe Professor Hill.
I recognize that most of the country is left with doubts about what really happened and so are many Senators. There is no conclusive answer yet, but the Senate has to vote today and what is the Senate to do?
In my view Senators who are unsure about who is telling the truth should vote against this nomination. The Bush administration is urging the Senate to give the benefit of the doubt to the nominee. If this were a criminal proceeding or even a civil lawsuit, that assertion would be correct. But the issue before the Senate today is a proceeding of a very different kind. The question is whether Judge Clarence Thomas should be appointed to the highest court in the land, whether he should be entrusted with the solemn power to have the last word on the meaning of the Constitution and the fundamental rights of all Americans…
To give the benefit of the doubt to Judge Thomas is to say that Judge Thomas is more important than the Supreme Court. Surely whatever the faults and flaws of the confirmation process, the President of the United States can find another nominee for the Supreme Court who is not under the cloud of having committed serious acts of sexual harassment.
[Thomas was confirmed by a vote of 52-48.]
The Constitutional Alamo 