WASHINGTON (AP) — Venturing into a tradition of protocol and politics, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor prepared Monday to greet the senators who will decide her judicial future as control of her Supreme Court journey shifts to Capitol Hill.
One week after President Barack Obama introduced her to the nation, Sotomayor on Tuesday starts private, informal meetings with key Senate leaders of both parties. So begins the choreographed march the White House hopes will land her on the nation’s highest court, perhaps for decades to come.
Quietly but aggressively, a White House team loaded with confirmation veterans is working daily to help Sotomayor and promote the narrative that Obama began: a seasoned federal judge who overcame hardship as a youngster and would deliver justice that reflects respect for the law but an understanding of real life.
Republicans, though, are poised to push Sotomayor about whether she would put her own views above the law and rule as an “activist.”
Sotomayor was at the White House on Monday, consulting with White House attorneys and going over her Senate questionnaire. Her response to the document – an extensive survey of her life, public statements, rulings and political activities – is expected soon.
Beyond the Senate meet-and-greets, Sotomayor is likely to spend most of her week at the White House.
The judge herself is staying mum in public, as is custom. News photographers could cover her White House visit Monday, but reporters could not.
Barring a huge surprise, she is expected to be confirmed. Democrats control 59 seats in the Senate, where a majority vote is needed for confirmation.
On Tuesday, Sotomayor is expected to visit 10 senators, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman of the Judiciary Committee; and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the panel’s top Republican.
She’s also slated to meet with the No. 2 Democrat and Republican, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and to lunch privately with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a Judiciary member and her unofficial chaperone during the confirmation process.
The roughly half-hour, closed-door meetings – known as “courtesy calls” – are as important for the courtly tone they set for the beginning of the Senate’s debate on Sotomayor as for the few moments of candid conversation they offer senators and the nominee. A more substantive and freewheeling discussion of her record and past will come with the impending release of the detailed questionnaire, which will likely yield fodder for her supporters and detractors.
Sotomayor, 54, would replace retiring Justice David Souter.
First, she’ll have to meet with many of the senators who get to vote on her confirmation. Her Tuesday visits include two Judiciary members, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, as well as home-state Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.
The White House has not identified any one person to shepherd Sotomayor’s confirmation, but rather a team of insiders working on her behalf. They are helping her with the questionnaire, prepping her for her hearings, reaching out to Capitol Hill and working on strategies to stay on message in the media.
The team meets each morning and evening with Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and senior Obama adviser David Axelrod.
Leading the group is Cynthia Hogan, chief counsel to Vice President Joe Biden. She was Biden’s lead counsel when he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee during the Senate confirmation reviews of justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
Other key members are Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, chief counsel of Judiciary during the confirmation hearings of justices Clarence Thomas and David Souter; White House counsel Greg Craig and deputy counsel Cassandra Butts, both heavily involved in Sotomayor’s vetting; White House associate counsel Susan Davies, who served as top counsel to the Judiciary Committee under Leahy; deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer, who oversaw the media rollout of Sotomayor’s nomination; and Stephanie Cutter, a strategist seasoned in Senate politics, campaigns and the Clinton White House.
The administration is reaching outside for help, too. Ricki Seidman, who held senior roles in the Clinton White House and worked for the Obama campaign as a top aide to Biden, is coordinating the White House’s message with those of supportive interest groups.
Obama wants the Senate to confirm Sotomayor before its August vacation. The White House formally started the clock Monday, sending her nomination to the Senate.
Leahy on Monday stepped up his calls for quick Judiciary Committee hearings, saying the sessions are Sotomayor’s only opportunity to respond to harshly worded criticism by prominent Republicans such as talk-show host Rush Limbaugh and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Both have called Sotomayor a racist for 2001 comments in which she said the decisions of a “wise Latina” judge would be superior to those of a white male. Limbaugh on Friday compared choosing her to tapping a former Ku Klux Klan leader for the job.
In a conference call with reporters, Leahy said: “I’ll give everyone plenty of time to read all her cases and prepare for it. But I’m not going to sit around and wait forever and just have these attacks go on, be unanswered.”
Democrats hope the incendiary remarks by some Republicans outside Congress will enhance their chances of getting GOP senators, who have been much more tempered in their comments, to agree to a swift timetable for her confirmation. That could mean hearings as early as the first full week of July.
But McConnell seemed to suggest that was unlikely.
“Judge Sotomayor has a long record and it will take a long time to get through it,” the GOP leader said Monday on the Senate floor.