WASHINGTON (CNN) - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will vote against the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, his office announced Friday, marking the first time the Kentucky Republican has ever opposed a nominee to the high court.
"Judge Sotomayor's record of written statements suggests an alarming lack of respect for the notion of equal justice, and therefore, in my view, an insufficient willingness to abide by the judicial oath," he said in a written statement. "This is particularly important when considering someone for the Supreme Court since, if she were confirmed, there would be no higher court to deter or prevent her from injecting into the law the various disconcerting principles that recur throughout her public statements. For that reason, I will oppose her nomination."
McConnell, who also opposed Sotomayor's 1998 appellate court nomination, has previously voted to confirm every Supreme Court nominee since joining the senate in 1985, including Clinton appointees Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
Other senators who have announced their intent to vote against Sotomayor are Republicans Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Bob Bennett of Utah. Bennett supported Sotomayor's 1998 appellate court nomination.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced Thursday that the GOP will not attempt to block a direct vote on Sotomayor's nomination. Currently, Republicans control 40 seats in the chamber, just shy of the number needed to indefinitely delay a final vote.
From CNN Politics
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I guess you can't vote for someone who lets their beliefs influence their decisions, unless you share their beliefs.
Who cares?
Does this surprise anyone?
A white, racist, evengelical southern senator announces he will vote NO to confirm an hispanic woman.
Just another reason the Republican Party is the minority party and dropping fast.
She has more experience then you, that’s why she's being elected. You haven’t questioned the guyz to your left or right about their integrity of the oaths they have yet to uphold so why vote against change now?
Oh right!!! We all see this old white man for what he is. No matter how he tries to sugar coat it. He doesn't want a minority with fews other than his to be seated. What a bigot!
Let her go my fellow Republicans. Actually, I think she'll turn out to be a pleasant surprise and a thorn in the far lefts side. I see the Court changing her and not her attempting to change the Court. Let's wait and see.
What disconcerting principles, Mr. McConnell, does she demonstrate in her rulings? Can you elaborate, or are you too busy these days running from the press to explain your support for someone who has conclusively demonstrated very disconserting principles( or a total lack of them), like Senator Ensign?
Sotomayer could have erected a burning cross during the Senate hearings... and democrats wouldn't have cared!
Obama wants an Affirmative Action nominee and the democrats will obey.... regardless how incompetent the nominee.
So what , he barely has lips to talk ,less on to vote anything but NO. His no vote does not (COUNT ANYWAY)...... I mean ... BIG DEAL.... WHO TRULY CARES, Judge Sotomayor is a (LOCK).......
She was nominated becasue of her skin color. I applaud anyone who opposes such appointments.
SO let me see if I got this
He is voteing aganist her for what he doesn't get in her speeches after pulling them appart and changing them, not for what her record has shown her to do. Wow i think i hate this guy's little mind.
Thank you, McConnell, Bunning and Bennett!
Hopefully others will join you and vote against her appointment, for the reasons you cite and others.
It does not suprise me that McConnell would vote against her. Judge Sotomayor is very qualified but to watch the hearings and witness these white men ask their ridiculous questions has been amusing. These white, republican men are so full of hatred and discrimination it is so offensive. I admire Judge Sotomayor even more that she has had to deal with these hateful and racist Senators and their grandstanding this week. They are so out of touch with the real world. At least Judge Sotomayor will take in consideration what people in the real world are dealing with day in and day out when she is on the bench making critical decisons that affect people's lives.
Not shocking....
I guess Kentucky doesn't like to promote racists to the Supreme Court.
who cares his vote is a useless as he should have been voted out long long ago
What is new look at his racist face. He is party of the Party of No anyway.
Interesting. Maybe he should look at the 1992 Supreme Court's ruling in Planned Parenthood v Casey 1992 that upheld Roe v Wade, 8 of the 9 justices involved were Republican appointees. And he's concerned about a Democratic appointee? Seems "activist judges" have been alive and well and provided by the Republican presidents.
Watch the racist, bigotted libs make comments about a person who votes his conscience, something that is alien to them since it takes a brain and not George Soros, ACORN and the unions telling them what to think.
Bitter or Bigoted.......which is it itch????
Mitch McConnell, like all other republicans, has once again put on display infinite hypocrisy. He accuses Judge Sotomayor of lacking respect for the notion of equal justice and an insufficient willingness to abide by, in this case, the judicial oath. How many times in his senatorial career has he voted in such a way as to demonstrate a lack of respect for the notion of equal justice. How many times in his senatorial career has he demonstrated an insufficient willingness to abide by his implied government servant's oath to serve the people this nation before serving himself with the endless spoils from major corporations, lobbyests and the like. It's an oximoron to accuse a minority in this country of lacking respect for the notion of equal justice – not because of their minority status, but because as a minority, they have never experienced equal justice and thus long for it. It is much easier for a non-minority to lack respect for the notion of equal justice because, always having available to them, they take it for granted. Equal justice...That'll be the day.
At least the fundamentalist, racist, extremist right wingers are consistent. The fundamentalist Muslims and these guys have similar belief systems. Diversity scares the heck out of them because it would mean that they aren't always right on everything and they can't deal with that concept.
Who cares?? McConnell is a dinosaur abd the leader of a dying party.
Why does Senator McConnell always look as if he's suppressing a fart?
Mitch Mconnell is racist, pig who shows poor jugdement, and needs to be impeached immediately