Excerpt of Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions’s questioning of then-U.S. District judge Sonia Sotomayor at her 1997 Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing to the federal appeals court:
Sessions: Judge Sotomayor, would you agree that if we respect that Constitution, we have to enforce it, the good and bad parts?
Sotomayor: Absolutely, sir.
Sessions: Even if we do not agree with part of it?
Sotomayor: Absolutely.
Sessions: And we really undermine and weaken that Constitution when we try to bend it and make it fit our contemporary feelings of the moment?
Sotomayor: Sir, I do not believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.
Sessions: And when we honor it as it is written, I think we strengthen it and make it available to protect us when any great threat to our liberty arises. I agree with you on that.
Source: Judiciary Committee
This story was originally published on The Legal Satyricon.
