The Leader Board blog at Republican.Senate.Gov reveals that Judge Sonia Sotomayor was not being truthful when she told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday that she was not involved in the legal strategies of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF) during her twelve years on its board. In fact, the minutes of the meetings of the board’s litigation committee, on which she sat (including, at one point, as chairwoman) show that she was deeply involved in the fund’s abortion advocacy.
Here is the exchange from yesterday:
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R-AL): “Isn’t that true that you were more active than you may have suggested to Senator Graham yesterday?”
JUDGE SONIA SOTOMAYOR: “…That memo has to be examined in context. The memo was a moment in our 12-year history where the board was planning a retreat. To think about what directions, if any, we should consider moving into or not. We were not reviewing the individual cases to see if the individual cases, what positions were taken, the type of strategies.“
The PRLDEF litigation committee’s meeting minutes tell a different story, as the Leader Board blog describes:
March 25, 1981 Litigation Committee Meeting Minutes (Judge Sotomayor attended): “The Committee was provided copies of the Fund’s Docket of Cases . . .”
• The minutes also state: “There was a discussion regarding possible new issues that could be addressed by the Fund.”
• The minutes also state: “The Board also unanimously resolved to request the Staff to examine what legal avenues might be available to challenge the cuts in federal entitlements.”
In Fact, According to PRLDEF’s Organization and Mission Report, When Judge Sotomayor Was Chairperson Of The Litigation Committee in 1987, She Was Responsible For Reviewing the Current Litigation:
November 11, 1985 Draft Report of the Organization and Mission Committee. Responsibilities of the Litigation Committee included: “(1) Review[ing] docket of current litigation; (2) Explor[ing] areas of potential litigation and set[ting] priorities for the Fund for the year.”
When Sotomayor Was Chairperson Of The Litigation Committee, She Briefed The Board On Current Litigation:
October 8, 1987 Minutes: “Chairperson Sotomayor summarized the activities of the Committee over the last several months which included the review of the litigation efforts of the past and present…”
On January 14, 1988, “Committee Chairperson Sonia Sotomayor reviewed the scope of the Committee’s work and indicated a fuller report would be presented at the upcoming Board meeting.” [Read the full story on the Leader Board blog.]
MORE: See AUL’s Sotomayor411.com for in-depth background on Sotomayor’s PRLDEF involvement.
