12:59 p.m. – Sen. Leahy calls a lunch break. The hearing will resume at 2 p.m.; AUL liveblogging will also resume then in a new post.
12:53 p.m. – The discussion has turned to antitrust law, and the question of stare decisis comes up. Sotomayor says that one element that should be considered in stare decisis is, “Has there been a change in society that shows that the factual findings” of the previous rule may have been wrong? She added, “The court has recognized in its stare decisis jurisprudence that all of the factors weigh into the decision.”
Although the subject is antitrust, the nominee’s statement is quite interesting in light of her earlier refusal to comment to Sen. Coburn on whether technological advances — e.g. being able to save the life of an infant born at 21 weeks — should influence interpretation of abortion law. Apparently, when the subject is antitrust law, Sotomayor is perfectly comfortable with admitting that new information must be taken into account. When the subject is abortion law, she doesn’t want to even discuss whether a change in “factual findings” is relevant.
12:43 p.m. – Kaufman is asking about securities law.
12:34 p.m. – Sotomayor continues to talk about what she learned from her experience at a commercial law firm.
In the meantime, Jillian Bandes of TownHall.com fires a response from across the Senate blogging room to my disparaging Sen. Klobuchar’s bringing up bathroom conversation. Jillian writes: “There is a back-and-forth that exists among women that does not exist among men. In professional situations, that probably deserves to be tempered. But wouldn’t it serve us better to complain about the pacification of debate during the hearings as a whole, rather than complaining [about] the estrogen involved in the discussion of a women’s bathroom conversation?”
Most definitely, and I’m trying to do that as well. But I remain embarrassed by Sen. Klobuchar’s comment, as a woman. The senator’s comment was not womanly,; it was girly.
12:30 p.m. – Kaufman asks about the nominee’s commercial practice. She talks about how much she wanted to go into a small law firm where she could have hands-on practice. Says she was involved in contracts related to grain commodity trading.
12:28 p.m. – Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) begins questioning.
12:26 p.m. – Klobuchar ends her question by asking, “Did you have a chance to watch the All-Star game last night?”
Sotomayor admits she “turned it on for a little while.”
What a waste of the American people’s time.
12:20 p.m. – Klobuchar is talking about “white-collar cases.” Asks the nominee about her views of sentencing white-collar defendants. Sotomayor responds by talking about how sentencing laws have changed since she was a district-court judge. “That makes me sound ancient,” she observes.
12:09 p.m. – Klobuchar asks about Sotomayor’s decision in the Falso case, which involved child pornography. The nominee discusses the case, which hinged on whether a warrant was required for obtaining certain evidence. (SCOTUSblog has background on the case.)
11:55 a.m. – Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) starts her questioning with a bizarre story complimenting the “patience” of the nominee’s mother. Says she ran into Sotomayor’s mother in the ladies’ room. The mom was so eager to share stories about her daughter that the senator barely made it back to the hearings room in time.
As a woman, I find this embarrassing. Men don’t talk about their bathroom conversation in public hearings; why should a woman? I have enough estrogen as it is without having to soak it up as it seeps out from the TV set.
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