That’s the title of my new Confirmation Tales post. Some excerpts:
The day after Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing ended, Senator Bob Bennett, the junior Republican from Utah, became the first senator to announce that he would vote against Sotomayor’s nomination.
Bennett’s race to the front of the pack was in many respects unusual. Unlike his senior colleague Orrin Hatch, Bennett wasn’t on the Judiciary Committee and hadn’t been vocal on judicial nominations during his sixteen years in the Senate. Hatch and Bennett had a good relationship, and Bennett would ordinarily follow Hatch’s lead on judges, not move ahead of him. Bennett was mild in manner, not someone who liked to attract attention….
But Tea Party activists were unhappy with Bennett…. Bennett was up for re-election in 2010, and he knew that he would face a serious challenge in getting his own party’s nomination…. So Bennett was determined to oppose Sotomayor and evidently figured that he might win extra credit for doing so right away.
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