Leahy To GOP: "Stop The Racial Politics" On Sotomayor

[jefferson_dem]

Leahy To GOP: "Stop The Racial Politics" On Sotomayor
First Posted: 07-19-09 10:33 AM

The two top officials on the Senate Judiciary Committee left niceties at the door when they held a joint appearance on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday.

Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) accused the Republican Party of playing "racial politics" with the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Sonia Sotomayor, even declaring that the leaders of the GOP had called her a "bigot" and the "head of the KKK."

"I have no idea how many she'll get in committee or on the floor," said Leahy. "But she will have Republican votes... She deserves it. Now, I understand Mitch McConnell and I've worked with Senator McConnell on different things. But like the other leaders of the Republican Party, he came out very, very early against her and he doesn't want to change his mind. You had one leader of the Republican Party call her the equivalent of the head of the Ku Klux Klan. Another leader of the Republican Party called her a bigot. To Senator McConnell's credit, he has not used those things, but the leadership of the Republican Party came out against her long before we ever had the hearing, long before they had a chance to look at her record. I think that's unfair."

"I hope we don't go back to the day when we used to put African-Americans up for confirmation and say yes, but you belong to the NAACP so we're really suspicious of you," Leahy added later, referencing the Republican concerns with Sotomayor's involvement with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund. "Come on, stop the racial politics."

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/19/leahy-to-gop-stop-the-rac_n_239905.html

[SunsetDreams]

1. K&R

[Arkana]

2. Recommending this, because it needs to be seen that not all our Senators

in leadership positions are Jell-O spined wimps.

[depakid]

3. Psst.. Patrick

Let them keep on alienating folks.

[Number23]

4. Rec'd. Thank you. This mess needs to stop.

Americans of color are sick and damned tired of being made to feel like aliens and "others."