Sotomayor’s Service on Nonprofit Board Becomes Confirmation Issue

The Center for American Progress is taking issue with a Republican talking point to the effect that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is unfit to sit on the Supreme Court because of her affiliation with the nonprofit organization, Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF):

Myth #5: Sotomayor sat on the board of an “extreme” organization.

Fact: Sotomayor sat on the board of a “highly regarded nonprofit organization” that is under attack by a right-wing senator with a history of unfounded allegations against civil rights organizations.

Perhaps the most bizarre attack on Judge Sotomayor is the claim—spearheaded by Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL)—that her service on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, or PRLDEF, makes her unsuitable for the bench because PRLDEF “took extreme positions.”10 Sessions’ baseless attacks on PRLDEF sparked a stern rebuke by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said that “[o]nly in Washington could someone’s many years of volunteer service to a highly regarded nonprofit organization that has done so much good for so many be twisted into a negative.”

Indeed, the only person whose judgment is called into question by Sessions’ attack is Jeff Sessions. In 1986, Sessions’ nomination to the federal bench was rejected by the Senate, in part because of Sessions’ claims that the NAACP is a “Communist-inspired” and “un-American” organization.” Twenty-three years later, civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and PRLDEF are still well within the mainstream of American society, but Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has not changed one bit.

I don’t think anything else need be said, but I can’t help it.  Nonprofit organizations are at their best, I think, when they act in contrarian ways.  As my tax exempt prof, Steve Willis, opined in class one day, the reason why nonprofits exist is because we want to encourage grass roots movements that have not the political support to obtain direct funding from government nor the market support to garner consumer support and yet may express legitimate valuable ideas (i.e., slavery is wrong, women should be allowed to vote, etc). 

dkj