In this morning’s Wall Street Journal, George Mason School of Law’s Neomi Rao suggests a list of questions that should be asked to Sonia Sotomayor during the confirmation process. They are all about Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy. As she explains:
Mr. Obama has the prerogative of nomination, but the confirmation process serves as an important check on whether a nominee’s philosophy is acceptable to the American people. Even with a strongly Democratic Senate, the process should be more than a rubber stamp. The stakes are high when we give a person life tenure to decide some of the most important issues facing our country.
Here are the questions:
– Do you believe that judges should use “empathy” to decide cases? . . .
– Do you believe that interpretations of the Constitution should evolve to keep up with the times? . . .
– Should Supreme Court justices be bound by precedent? . . .
– What is the court’s role when interpreting ambiguous laws? . . .
– What matters most, the law or the result? . . .
The whole thing here.