Republicans attempt to poke holes in Leahy’s reasoning

In addition to the ongoing saga on the Senate floor that J.T. is following, Senate Republicans are attempting to poke some holes through the reasoning behind Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vt.) schedule for Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings.

When Leahy announced on Tuesday that Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings would begin July 13, he was sure to point out that the date put Sotomayor on the same schedule to confirmation that John Roberts was on. Roberts’s hearings began 48 days after his nomination was announced, Leahy said, and July 13 will be 48 days since Sotomayor’s nomination was announced.

Republicans aren’t buying that logic. The Senate Republican Communications Center put out a release Tuesday morning noting that Sotomayor has a lot more opinions and writings than Roberts had then and, therefore, Republicans should get more time to go through them. In order to go through all of her opinions, they said, Republicans would have to review 76 cases per day. For Roberts, Democrats had to review just six cases per day to adhere to his confirmation schedule.

Seems to me, though, that this line of argument also inadvertently raises the fact that Sotomayor is one of the most experienced jurists to be nominated to the court – one of the Obama administration’s biggest talking points.

jeremy.jacobs@digital-staging.thehill.com