Majority Of U.S. Residents Support Confirming Supreme Court Nominee Sotomayor, Poll Finds

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology;  Public Health;  Litigation / Medical Malpractice
Article Date: 30 Jun 2009 - 2:00 PDT

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Sixty-two percent of U.S. residents want Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor to be confirmed, and 55% say she is "about right" on a liberal-to-conservative scale, according to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, the Post reports. For the survey, pollsters randomly surveyed a national sample of 1,001 adults by telephone between June 18 and June 21. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

The poll found that about three-fourths of abortion-rights supporters want Sotomayor to be confirmed, compared with less than half of abortion-rights opponents. According to the poll, six in 10 U.S. residents would want the new Supreme Court justice to vote to uphold Roe v. Wade. Most Republican men would want the next Supreme Court justice to vote to overturn Roe, while Republican women were split about evenly on the issue, the poll found.

The poll also found that support for Sotomayor's confirmation was equal between men and women. In addition, nearly eight in 10 Democrats and about two-thirds of independents said they supported Sotomayor's confirmation, compared with 36% of Republicans. The poll found that most Republicans deemed Sotomayor a "more liberal" nominee than they would prefer. Among Republicans, those self-identifying as conservative Republicans were largely opposed to Sotomayor's confirmation, with more than seven in 10 conservative Republicans saying she is too liberal.

Sotomayor received support from Republicans self-identifying as moderate or liberal, with fewer than four in 10 saying she is too liberal. However, about one in five who opposed Sotomayor's confirmation said that she is not liberal enough. The poll also found that among the 33% of U.S. residents who said that Sotomayor's gender plays a role, more than twice as many said that is a positive attribute as opposed to a negative attribute (Cohen/Barnes, Washington Post, 6/28).

Sessions Requests More Information

Senate Judiciary Committee ranking Republican Jeff Sessions (Ala.) on Friday sent a letter to the White House requesting additional information on Sotomayor, the New York Times' "The Caucus" reports. According to Sessions, the Obama administration has yet to provide members of the committee with information about a number of cases that Sotomayor brought to trial while working as a district attorney in New York. In addition, Sessions requested information regarding a case that Sotomayor argued on appeal. He also requested information about her work with Latino Justice PRLDEF, formerly known as the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Sotomayor's confirmation hearing is scheduled to begin July 13. Republicans have criticized the schedule, saying it gives them insufficient time to review Sotomayor's record. Democrats have said that Republicans are seeking to create unnecessary delays and noted that the timeline is similar to that of past nominees (Herszenhorn, "The Caucus," New York Times, 6/26).

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