Voters Must Hold Democrats Accountable for Sotomayor's Lies During Confirmation

During her confirmation hearings, Justice Sotomayor testified that the 2nd Amendment was an individual right for every citizen of the United States to bear arms. In her Senate testimony, sworn under oath, she said "I understand the individual right fully that the Supreme Court recognized in Heller" and, "I understand how important the right to bear arms is to many, many Americans." Justice Sotomayor repeatedly averred that Heller is "settled law."

Sotomayor was nominated by a Democrat (President Barack Obama), the confirmation hearings were conducted by Democrats, and every single Democrat in the Senate voted for her to be confirmed. Now they need to be held accountable for her bald-faced lying under oath.

In the recent McDonald v. Chicago court case, which was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the issue of gun rights, the Court held that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms" protected by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and applies to the states. This decision confirmed how important the right to bear arms is to Americans, and it followed up the recent Heller decision and made sure that Heller was settled law.

One would assume that Justice Sotomayor joined in the majority, since her sworn testimony agrees with all of these ideas- but she didn't, since she told the Democrats whatever they wanted to hear and they confirmed her without digging further. The Breyer-Sotomayor-Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissent urged that Heller be overruled and declared, "In sum, the Framers did not write the Second Amendment in order to protect a private right of armed self defense." She disagrees with the other Justices who think that the Second Amendment says that people's right to keep and bear arms should not be infringed, and felt that it was legal and proper and right for states to ban handguns and mandate that guns be re-registered annually with payment of the fees, among other requirements.

It's fine that Justices Breyer and Ginsburg dissented- they never promised anyone that they considered Heller to be "settled law." They never lied about their beliefs and views and played up "how important the right to bear arms is to many, many Americans." On the other hand, Sonia Sotomayor promised to do one thing and then did the opposite- she said one thing, and then did the exact opposite.

Federal judges have lifetime appointments, and so there is no real way to hold them accountable directly. But that does not mean that Judges can feel free to lie under oath in confirmation hearings and not worry about repercussions. That does not mean that those who appoint, question, and confirm judges that lie can not be held accountable- they can, and they should. Obama, the Democrats who questioned Sotomayor, and the Senators who voted to confirm her need to be held accountable by voters the next time they are up for election for their failures to appoint people who tell the truth, for their failures to question people such that their falsehoods are exposed, and for their judgement to vote to confirm a judge who lies so easily and so quickly.

One can only hope that the process won't be repeated during the Elena Kagan confirmation hearings.