Democrat Senator Leahy questions Sotomayor's impartiality.

In 1990, faced with confirming conservative judges appointed by the Bush administration, the Democrats on the judiciary committee decided to implement a rule regarding the membership in exclusive, discriminatory clubs.

From the Washington Times:

In June 1990, Arlen Specter, then a Republican from Pennsylvania, and all but one of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary committee sponsored a resolution warning nominees that having belonged to such clubs could be enough to deny them confirmation. The resolution claimed that membership in such organizations "conflicts with the impartiality, and the appearance of impartiality" expected of judges and that it will be held against the nominee unless they "actively engaged" in efforts to get underrepresented groups into the organizations.

Sens. Leahy, Specter and Herb Kohl, Wisconsin Democrat, supported the resolution and are still on the Judiciary Committee. Joseph Biden, who was the committee chairman at the time, is now vice president.

Well, it turns out that Judge Sotomayor is a current member of a discriminatory, exclusive organization:

It was revealed Friday that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor belongs to the Belizean Grove, a highly selective club for women only.

The Democrats applied this rule against nominees if they had EVER, no matter how far in their past, been members of such an organization, even if they had quit, and even if they had denounced the group.

In 2001, they held up one nominee for over a year for belonging to a fishing club:

When Judge D. Brooks Smith was nominated to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 2001, his confirmation was held up for almost a year in part because he belonged to an all-male fishing and gun club.

But Sotomayor has never denounced this group. In fact, she JOINED the group well after being confirmed as a judge, just last year in fact (from the Politico):

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor last year accepted an invitation to join the Belizean Grove, an elite but little-known women’s-only group.
...
Sotomayor’s membership in the New York-based group became public Thursday afternoon in a questionnaire submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Of course, because she is a Democrat, and they are Democrats, Leahy and Kohl will ignore the rules and vote to confirm her anyway. Democrats in general are very bad when it comes to consistancy, prefering hypocrisy.

But in fact, Sotomayor has violated more than a longstanding Democrat-sponsored judiciary rule. She has violated the ethics standards for Judges:

The American Bar Association's Canons of Judicial Ethics stipulates that judges "shall not" be members of any organization that unfairly discriminates based on gender.

So Sotomayor, having a lifetime judicial appointment to the appeals court, knowingly defied the ABA canon of Judicial Ethics, casting doubt on all her rulings by joining a discriminatory exclusive club. She should be censured, not given a promotion.

Her membership in a club that excludes men from it's membership casts a new and disturbing light on her previous comments that a "wise latina woman" would make better decisions than a "white man". She can no longer pretend she treats genders equally, now that we know of her bigoted membership in this club.

IN many ways, this is much worse than her membership in the racist organization "La Raza". We already know she is biased for people of her own ethnic background -- I have no doubt that a white man won't get justice from her against hispanics. So it isn't really a surprise that she belongs to a bigoted racist organization like "La Raza", (whose name says it all).