Steve Padilla: Sotomayor hearings: Looking back in court history -- to when the first Jewish nominee was considered by the Judiciary Committee

Periodically during this week’s Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the Ticket will pause to share some history on the court and the committee.

In his opening remarks Monday,  committee Chairman Patrick Leahy alluded to that history, recounting the key role the committee has played in the nation’s affairs. He spoke of the committee’s role in shepherding the Civil Rights Act through Congress and the panel’s work on various amendments to the Constitution. This work, he said, helped create a “more perfect union.”

Sotomayor, if confirmed, would be come the court’s first Latino justice. Leahy recalled the first time a Jew was nominated to the high court, which leads us to the highly readable history portion of the committee’s website, which offers up this tidbit:

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson’s nomination of Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish nominee to the Supreme Court, embroiled the Judiciary Committee in a four-month debate. At the time of his nomination, it was not the practice of the Senate to hear testimony from Supreme Court nominees. Instead, the Committee conducted its own investigations, often in executive session and without record of their deliberations.

Brandeis, nevertheless, influenced the outcome the Committee’s deliberations by sending telephone and telegraph messages to the witnesses appearing on his behalf in an effort to rebut the staunch opposition to his nomination. The Committee reported his nomination, and in June 1916, the Senate confirmed his nomination by a vote of 47–22.

Leahy noted that, reflecting the anti-Semitism of the time, questions were raised back then about “the Jewish mind.”

If you like history -- and even if you don't -- you'll find the committee's website fascinating reading.