Sunday, May 31, 2009

Sen. Maria Cantwell
Sen. Patty Murray
FAX: (425) 303-8351 (425) 259-7152


Senator Cantwell, Senator Murray:

I am writing you this letter to call on you to oppose the nomination of
judge Sonia Sotomayor to the position of Associate Justice of the United
States Supreme Court.

My primary objection to her nomination is her support of the position that
the Second Amendment does not apply to the States. After decades of
incorporation of the other provisions of the Bill of Rights, it is no longer
possible to make a reasonable argument against applying the 2nd amendment to
the States as well.

Judge Sotomayor's position in Maloney v. Cuomo that the 2nd does not apply
to the States was based on Presser v. Illinois. Presser v. Illinois itself
merely restated a portion of US v. Cruikshank; but the logic in that opinion
was flawed.

The 1st amendment includes the phrase "Congress shall make no law ...". This
is an obvious and explicit limitation of the scope of the 1st amendment. The
2nd amendment contains no such limitation; it says only "The right ... shall
not be infringed.", which provides no limit on the scope of the prohibition
of government action. If the framers had wished to limit the scope of the
2nd amendment's prohibitions, they would have included language to set the
limits. US v. Cruikshank improperly applied the "Congress shall make no law
..." wording of the 1st amendment to the content of the 2nd amendment, and
reached the incorrect conclusion that the 2nd was also a limitation on the
powers of only the federal government.

Both cases were in the late 1800s. Relying on that logic today to reach the
conclusion that the 2nd amendment is a restriction on the powers of only the
federal government is doubly flawed, as the entirety of the 1st amendment -
except for the right to petition for redress of grievances, for which
incorporation is only implied by dicta - has been explicitly incorporated as
limitations on the powers of the State governments under the 14th amendment.
If "Congress shall make no law ..." did not prevent the 1st amendment from
being applied to the States, how can it possibly keep the 2nd amendment
from being applied to the States?

Secondly, her public statement "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with
the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better
conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life" is painfully and
obviously bigoted. If a white male nominee had made a similar statement
about how a white male would reach better decisions than a Latina woman,
even in jest, he would not survive the nomination process and the President
who nominated him would be vilified for nominating him. That the bigotry is
in the other direction in this case should not make it acceptable.

Please do not support the nomination of judge Sotomayor.


				 Sincerely,




				John Hardin
			    <jhardin@impsec.org>