Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings begin today, and Republican senators reportedly "intend to focus on what they see as Judge Sotomayor's willingness to bring a personal agenda to the court, especially when it comes to issues of race."  At issue is Sotomayor's work as a board member with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, and her decision in Ricci v. DeStefano.  Sotomayor sat on the board of PRLDEF, and was not a litigator for them; somehow, though, she's being held responsible for their litigation strategy -- which isn't even that radical to begin with.  In Ricci, Sotomayor's Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel affirmed a District Court's ruling that a Connecticut fire department did not violate the law when it decided to scrap exam results and promoted no one in an effort to make promotions more racially balanced.

I don't doubt that Republicans will harp on the race issue during the confirmation hearings -- as much as they love to accuse liberals of "playing the race card," they are the true masters of assigning an insidious agenda to anyone who isn't white and dares discuss race (or, heaven forbid, evaluates laws against discrimination).  Sotomayor's color apparently makes her "biased" towards parties who share similar, less-than-privileged backgrounds, while the white skin worn by most of the sitting Supreme Court justices is assumed to play no role, and certainly not to bias them towards, say, white firefighters who feel like they were victims of affirmative action. 

In a sane political system, Sotomayor's opinion in Ricci and even the Supreme Court's departure from it would be a non-issue.  Affirming a lower court's ruling is about the most un-activist thing a judge can do, and the district court decision in Ricci was affirmed unanimously by the Second Circuit panel.  Sotomayor's panel initially didn't even issue an opinion; when one finally was written on request of another judge, it was eight sentences long.  Her role in Ricci was hardly the Angry Latina Woman of Limbaugh lore.  The United States Supreme Court overturned the Second Circuit's decision, but by a narrow margin -- and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg felt so strongly about the Court's decision that she read her dissent from the bench. 

In other words, it was a tough call -- one that divided the highest court in the country.

There is certainly good reason for the divisiveness. The Ricci decision struck a blow to disparate impact theory, making it easier to maintain laws and employment practices that are racially unbiased on their face but that in practice result in discriminatory outcomes.  Sotomayor's position -- not that the fire department had to scrap the test results, but that they were legally permitted to -- was hardly revolutionary or far-left.  One more left-leaning moderate judge on the Supreme Court and that position would have been affirmed.

The Supreme Court justices who evaluated Ricci are not raceless; most of them are white.  And yet no one suggests that perhaps their whiteness influences their views on racial inequality, or that they aren't unbiased simply by virtue of belonging to the American cultural majority.  Sotomayor, though, is branded a "racist" because she voted to uphold a lower court decision based on well-established legal theory.

Luckily, it's only a few conservative blowhards who are pulling the racist card.  Republicans will undoubtedly bring up Sotomayor's views on affirmative action and race, but no one expects dramatics at the confirmation hearings.   Despite right-wing whining about her "temperament" and the predictable problems with her not being a white male, it would be a surprise if the hearings did not go smoothly.  The American Bar Association gave her their highest rating, and she is by all reputable accounts a highly-qualified, intelligent and moderate jurist.  And with a ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee having his own race issues, one would hope that the GOP would tread lightly with the racism accusations. 

Of course, a lot can happen in a few days, and with all the focus on Ricci and race, there's been surprisingly little effort made to push Sotomayor to publicly state her position on Roe and reproductive rights. There has been even less talk about Sotomayor's views on gay rights, an underdeveloped legal area that is almost certain to make its way up to the Court in the next decade.  And from the left, scant attention has been paid to Sotomayor's extreme deference to law enforcement agents, even when they encroach on citizens' privacy rights.  So who knows -- maybe if the GOP lets go of its race fixation, a bomb will drop and we'll all find out that Sotomayor would vote to extend the rights guaranteed by Roe, or that she thinks there's no legitimate reason why a marriage between Adam and Eve is more valid than one between Adam and Steve (hey, here's hoping).

But with an experienced, pedigreed and thoroughly moderate judge like Sotomayor, and with Democrats outnumbering Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, I wouldn't hold my breath. More likely than not, these will be the most boring hearings yet.  And that is probably best for all involved -- especially since it will open the door for Obama to nominate a more progressive legal theorist in the future.  Those will be some fireworks worth watching.