Obama court pick puts spotlight on Sessions

updated 3:53 p.m. ET May 30, 2009

WASHINGTON - Sen. Jeff Sessions has made a career of speaking out and voting against anyone he considers an activist liberal judge. Sonia Sotomayor was no exception the last time they crossed paths.

In 1997, she was nominated to the federal appeals court. Sessions, R-Ala., was a backbench senator demanding to know whether she had refused to join in a standing ovation for conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She said she had.

Sessions voted against her anyway.

More than a decade later, the stakes are considerably higher. Sotomayor is President Barack Obama's choice to become the first Hispanic justice. Sessions has his party's lead role at her hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Confounding liberals and conservatives?
No one expects Sessions to alter his views of who should and shouldn't sit on the Supreme Court. But his own experience more than two decades ago as a judicial nominee denied a federal court seat by the Senate could confound conservatives expecting a bare-knuckled attack, as well as liberals hoping he'll come off as a bullying, out-of-touch Southerner.

"Some people are quick to caricature different members, whether it's the right caricaturing someone like Sen. (Edward) Kennedy or the left caricaturing someone like Sen. Sessions," said Michael O'Neill, a George Mason University law professor who was the committee's top GOP staffer when Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter was the senior Republican. "I don't think you'll see Sessions personalize this ... and in some respects it might be less heated."

Sessions, the son of a country store owner in rural Alabama, is stepping into his new role at a moment of weakness for his party. The circumstances, he acknowledges, require him to work more cooperatively with majority Democrats.

He knows he must balance pressure from the right to scrutinize Sotomayor against the risks of portraying Republicans as obstructionists, particularly with the first Hispanic nominee to the high court.

Sympathy for those in hot seat
But Sessions also has a unique personal sympathy for judges in the confirmation hot seat. It was 23 years ago when the same committee blocked his appointment over allegations that cast him as a racist. He says he feels an overriding "internal pressure" to handle nominations fairly.

INTERACTIVE Rate the justices How do you judge the judges? Weigh in with your rating. msnbc.com

No one would have guessed that Sessions would be in this position in 1986, when the committee killed his nomination by President Ronald Reagan to be a federal district court judge.

Sessions, then 39, denied charges he made racist comments and targeted black civil rights leaders as a federal prosecutor in Alabama. He did acknowledge making some off-color "jokes," such as calling civil rights groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People "un-American."

Kennedy, D-Mass., back then said Sessions was a "throwback to a shameful era." Two Republicans, including Specter, joined Democrats led by then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., to defeat the nomination.

MORE FROM CAPITOL HILL

Capitol Hill Section Front

NYT: Health bill revives abortion groups For Reid, Dodd, clout cuts both ways Poll: Americans conflicted over health overhaul Schumer: Dems can go it alone on health care Senate health bill targets ‘Cadillac’ plans Text message exposed senator’s affair Senate Democrats at odds over health care bill Congress is losing its patience with the Fed NYT: Senator cements role at heart of debate Rep. Kennedy: I’m barred from communion Capitol Hill Section Front   Add Capitol Hill headlines to your news reader: