WASHINGTON – The NRA stepped up its push Thursday against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, warning that backers risk losing ground with gun rights supporters, even as a powerful business lobby came out in support of President Barack Obama’s first high court nominee.
The promise by the National Rifle Association, which announced its opposition to Sotomayor last week, to include the vote on her nomination in its influential annual ratings of lawmakers is highly unlikely to prevent Sotomayor from being confirmed in early August. But it amounts to a threat to those considering backing her, which could make the upcoming vote politically tougher for some Republicans and conservative Democrats whose constituents are strong gun rights advocates.
It came as Sotomayor won the endorsement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which called Sotomayor a well-qualified judge who would be fair and evenhanded on business issues. The Chamber, in consultation with its litigation arm, has backed every Supreme Court nominee since Justice David Souter, who Sotomayor would replace if confirmed.
Sotomayor, the 55-year-old appeals court judge who’s in line to become the first Hispanic justice, has solid backing from Democrats and a handful of Republicans, although GOP leaders and most of the party’s conservatives are lining up solidly against her. She met Thursday on Capitol Hill with Republican Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, John Barrasso of Wyoming and John Ensign of Nevada, who have not said how they will vote.
Republicans are deeply divided on Sotomayor’s nomination, torn between a desire to please their conservative base by opposing Obama’s nominee and a fear that doing so would alienate women and particularly Hispanic voters who represent a fast-growing part of the electorate. Some GOP moderates have announced they’ll back Sotomayor, and she picked up support Wednesday from conservative Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, which could provide some measure of cover to others in his party considering voting yes.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Sotomayor’s unofficial guide through her confirmation process, called Graham a “bellwether” whose endorsement “suggests that more Republicans should end up supporting her as well.”
But conservative activists are doing all they can to counter such pressure, even in the face of virtually guaranteed defeat. In a letter to senators, NRA head Wayne LaPierre and chief lobbyist Chris W. Cox wrote that, “Given the importance of this issue, the vote on Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation will be considered in NRA’s future candidate evaluations.”
The letter said Sotomayor has a “hostile view” of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
It comes one day after the gun lobby suffered a major loss in the Senate with defeat of a measure that would have let people carry hidden guns in 48 states if they had a concealed weapon permit in any one of them.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun control group that has joined the nation’s major law enforcement organizations in backing Sotomayor, suggested Thursday that her confirmation would deflate the NRA’s legendary clout in Washington.
The NRA’s decision to score the vote, wrote the Brady Campaign’s Doug Pennington in an e-mail, is “the clearest example yet by which to judge the NRA’s reputation as the ‘Death Star’ of D.C. lobbying, with the power to destroy all opponents and scare senators into zombie-like lockstep voting behavior.”
