Sotomayor's decisions are "based more on the merits and facts of the cases"

Legal experts cited by Reuters in a piece by Steve Holland say Judge Sonia Sotomayor doesn't appear to be either particularly liberal or conservative on business issues, with decisions based more on the merits and facts of the cases than an ideological approach to the law.

Replacing a liberal justice with one who decides cases on their merits rather than politics doesn't mean the GOP will just give her a pass, they have to at least appear adversarial for the sake of their base - but despite predictable wailing and knee-jerk gnashing of rhetorical teeth from the usual extreme right info-tainers pandering for ratings, the folks in DC expect Ms. Sotomayor to be confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice.

A comment from 2005 may prove sticky if quoted out of context, but this is no activist ideologue. Judge Richard C. Wesley, a George W. Bush appointee to the Second Circuit, said:

"Sonia is an outstanding colleague with a keen legal mind. She brings a wealth of knowledge and hard work to all her endeavors on our court. It is both a pleasure and an honor to serve with her."

While GOP posturing is to be expected, Sotomayor herself was appointed by President George H.W. Bush to the District Court for the Southern District of New York, and with 11 years on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit she would replace Justice Souter as the only Justice on the court with experience as a trial judge.

There is one point of confusion, evidently, in certain quarters, so let me clarify that unless and until New York secedes from the union, U.S. citizens moving there from Puerto Rico - as Sotomayor's parents did - are not immigrants. I know New York can feel like a foreign country to some, but high school civics classes should be enough to get this right.

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