Sonia Sotomayor Quotes

Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written.

Every Constitution embodies the principles of its framers. It is a transcript of their minds. If its meaning in any place is open to doubt, or if words are used which seem to have no fixed signification, we cannot err if we turn to the framers; and their authority increases in proportion to the evidence which they left on the question.

The construction of the language of the Constitution ... as indeed in all other instances where construction becomes necessary, we are to place ourselves as nearly as possible in the condition of the men who framed that instrument.

Non-interpretivism (nonoriginalism) is merely a political argument for values non-interpretivists prefer to those in the Constitution.

The words of the Constitution ... are so unrestricted by their intrinsic meaning or by their history or by tradition or by prior decisions that they leave the individual Justice free, if indeed they do not compel him, to gather meaning not from reading the Constitution but from reading life.

The best way to have empathy for people and the best way to have empathy for our Constitution is to appoint judges who will rule based on the law and to have empathy, if you will, for the law only and to rule based on the law.

We need common-sense judges who understand our rights were derived from God

This is the difference between conservatives and liberals. Liberals want justices to vote a certain way. We, conservatives, want a particular legal philosophy, a philosophy for how to interpret the Constitution.

He was a lifelong Republican, but over the years, Harry Blackmun built a reputation as a liberal, sometimes defiant Justice, whose fierce protection of individual rights led some to anoint him the moral conscience of the court.

The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified; although some decisions with which I have disagreed seem to me to have forgotten the fact.

People think if they voted for somebody, they should reflexively defend everything they do or say. And if you voted against somebody, you should just as reflexively oppose everything they do or say. It's not very helpful. What's more constructive for our kids is to go on a case-by-case basis, evaluating particular policies.

I think [Louis] Brandeis challenges all of the current justices. As he said, "If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold." You have to take the values that the framers were concerned about and translate them into this new age.

To be locked into partisan politics doesn't permit you to think clearly.

We need to put people on the bench that understand the Constitution is not a living and breathing document. It is to be interpreted as originally meant.

The Constitution deals with substance, not shadows.

The laws of Caesar are one thing, those of Christ, another. Papinianus judges one way, our Paul another.

We must use a judicial, rather than a political, standard to evaluate [a nominee's] fitness for the Supreme Court. That standard must be based on the fundamental principle that judges interpret and apply but do not make law.

The campaign of character assassination waged [against President Clinton] by the right was a singular, unprecedented effort. Nothing like it exists on the left. What I object to on the right is the obsessive hatred, the bigotry, and the personal savaging of their opponents, all achieved through an echo chamber of talk radio, the Internet and Rupert Murdoch's media outlets. That kind of well-funded disinformation campaign has no analog on the left.

Laws are like spider's webs: If some poor weak creature comes up against them, it is caught; but a big one can break through and get away.

Since Vice President Al Gore is constantly making things up, it should come as no surprise that he wants Supreme Court justices who will do the same. As Gore put it, he will appoint judges who view the Constitution as a 'document that grows'.

The Constitution empowers the people to resolve our day's most contentious issues. When judges forget this basic truth, they do a disservice to our democracy and to our constitution.

In Germany, under the law, everything is prohibited, except that which is permitted. In France, under the law, everything is permitted, except that which is prohibited. In the Soviet Union, under the law, everything is prohibited, including that which is permitted. And in Italy, under the law, everything is permitted, especially that which is prohibited.

If Americans loved judicial activism, liberals wouldn't be lying about what it is. Judicial activism means making up constitutional rights in order to strike down laws the justices don't like based on their personal preferences. It's not judicial activism to strike down laws because they violate the Constitution.

A judicial activist is a judge who interprets the Constitution to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it.

Law is no explanation of anything; law is simply a generalization, a category of facts. Law is neither a cause, nor a reason, nor a power, nor a coercive force. It is nothing but a general formula, a statistical table.