Marge Baker, an executive vice president of the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way, said that in fashioning a new legal standard for such discrimination claims, the five-justice majority took a more radical approach than Sotomayor had. "You either want judges to follow the law, or you don't," Baker said. "If you want them to follow the law, you do what Judge Sotomayor and the panel did. If you want judicial activism . . . you do what the court did today."
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Ruling in firefighters case fuels critics of Sotomayor
The Supreme Court's reversal of a discrimination ruling by an appeals panel that included Sotomayor is seen by conservatives as a rebuke of her handling of the case.
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Conservative legal expert Jonathan Adler, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland, said the Supreme Court decision wasn't likely to lessen Sotomayor's odds of being confirmed. But, he said, "the fact that it took the court nearly 100 pages to resolve this question does cast a shadow over the 2nd Circuit panel's handling of the case, and may raise questions about her judgment."
In a separate case, the Supreme Court on Monday indirectly put more pressure on senators to act quickly on Sotomayor's nomination. It ordered a high-profile campaign-finance dispute to be re-argued Sept. 9 -- almost a month before the regular start of the term.
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joliphant@latimes.com
