Sotomayor disavows ‘wise Latina’ remark

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor retreated from her praise of the “wise Latina,” endorsed a privacy right to abortion in the Constitution and insisted she was not opposed to gun ownership during a day of questioning on a string of hot-button issues before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

In her first extended public exchanges since President Obama nominated her in May, Judge Sotomayor said her widely cited 2001 remark that a “wise Latina woman” would tend to make better judgments than a white man was a “failed rhetorical flourish that fell flat” - and not, as critics charge, evidence of racism.

“The context of the words I said has created a misunderstanding,” said Judge Sotomayor, the first Hispanic and the third woman nominated to the high court.

“I want to state upfront, unequivocally, I do not believe that any ethnic, racial or gender group has an advantage in sound judgment. I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge,” she said.

Republicans appeared unconvinced.

“You doubt the ability to be objective in your speeches,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the Judiciary Committee’s ranking Republican and a former prosecutor. “How can you reconcile your speeches that repeatedly assert that impartiality is a mere aspiration?” He said her testimony conflicted with her prior statements.

Judge Sotomayor, 54, was unruffled as she scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad and fielded questions on a broad range of contentious legal issues, from gun control and abortion to the 2000 presidential election fight and property rights.

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The nominee to replace retiring Justice David H. Souter said she accepted a recent Supreme Court decision that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of individuals to buy guns, but sidestepped a controversy that may soon come before the Supreme Court over whether that right limits the ability of individual states to impose their own restrictions.

“I understand … how important the right to bear arms is to many, many Americans,” she said. “I have friends who hunt. I understand the individual right fully that the Supreme Court recognized.”

Asked whether the decision affects the right of states to impose limitations, a question on which the lower courts are divided, she replied, “I would not prejudge any question that came before me if I was a justice of the Supreme Court.”

Republicans on the Senate panel pressed the nominee repeatedly during the day, provoking occasional terse exchanges but no dramatic clashes. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont and other sympathetic Democrats often raised some of the most contentious issues to give the judge a chance to frame her answer.

Mr. Sessions and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, spent much of their opening round of questions probing Judge Sotomayor’s stance in ruling against a group of white New Haven, Conn., firefighters who claimed discrimination in favor of black and Hispanic co-workers.

Judge Sotomayor concurred in a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that ruled the group of mostly white firefighters could not sue when city officials threw out employment test results after virtually no minority candidates qualified for promotion.

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