Taco Supreme

Today Sonia Sotomayor took the judicial oath and was sworn into the Supreme Court of the United States. If you've been watching Fox news or listening to Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh, you know that Justice Sotomayor is an extreme left wing radical activist and racist, who hates white people and is most likely a communist lesbian. Of course these days you can barely hear those allegations over the taunts of paid Republic protestors at town hall meetings who have descended upon this country like a swarm of effigy burning locusts. But I digress. Today is not for them; it is for Justice Sotomayor whose historic nomination should put the Court into perspective of the bleary eyes of the American people.

Most of our fellow Americans cannot name one member of the Supreme Court - let alone all nine - nor do they understand the radical shift the court has taken in their lifetimes. The shift I am referring to is not one to the left spurred by the presence of Justice Sotomayor but rather a dramatic shift to the right in the past thirty years, one which was intensified during W's administration with the appointments of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito - both of whom are grade A, blue ribbon, God-fearin neo-cons. To understand the Court's shift in politics, consider this: Justice Sotomayor replaced David Souter, a liberal by today's standards but who was appointed by H. W. Bush and considered to be conservative back in the early 90s.

After H.W. nominated Clarence Thomas (who is so right wing that he was the only dissent in Safford Unified School District v. Redding, which involved the unnecessary strip search of a 13-year-old girl by several school officials) Souter moved towards the middle of the Court. By the time Roberts became Chief Justice, Souter was consistently voting with the liberal wing, such as his dissent on Gonzales v. Oregon, which ruled that the prescription of medication for assisted suicide is unconstitutional, and Gonzales v. Carhart, which upheld W's partial-birth abortion ban.

Another prime example of the Court's shift is Justice John Paul Stevens. Justice Stevens, who grew up in Chicago, was nominated by Republican President Gerald Ford. Today, however, Justice Stevens is considered to be the most liberal Justice on the Court, and will not retire until he's sure his replacement will not be another Antonin Scalia or Samuel Alito. What does it mean when a Justice once considered to be conservative has to wait for a Democratic President and Congress in order to retire? This illustrates that what was once the conservative right is now the middle, and what was once the left is now languishing in the dissenting opinions for the majority of split cases. Justice Stevens, by the way, wrote the dissenting opinion -and quite a passionate one at that - in Bush v. Gore, which is often cited as the worst mistake the Court has made since Dred Scott.

As much as the neo-cons bitch and moan about Justice Sotomayor, she almost certainly will not be as liberal as Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black member of the Supreme Court.

But her presence will be no less valuable. However, the replacement of Souter with Sotomayor will have but a minimal impact on the outcome of future cases. Until President Obama or perhaps future Democratic Presidents have the opportunity to replace the ultra-conservative wing of the Court, it will remain - like Congress - skewed to the right of regular Americans. Sotomayor's appointment isn't so much as step in the right direction as it is a pivot - so let's all thank God it's not another step in the wrong direction.

Just so nobody has to look on wikipedia, here is a list of the current Court - I've divided up the members into "liberal" and "conservative". Enjoy.

Conservative:

Roberts

Scalia

Alito

Thomas

Kennedy (swing)

Liberal:

Sotomayor

Stevens

Ginsberg

Breyer