The Civil War ended seven score and four years ago. But if you took a look a the makeup of the Senate Judiciary Committee, you might have a hard time believing it didn’t end more recently. Why? Well, if Abraham Lincoln woke up yesterday morning and watched that committee deliberating the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, he might have felt the need to rub his eyes. “Why,” he might have asked, “are almost all the Republicans on this committee from Confederate states?” It’s true. Other than Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Orrin Hatch of Utah, all the Republican members of the Judiciary Committee are from Dixie. And, perhaps more confounding for Lincoln, every single one of the Democrats on the committee are from Union states. But if the regional makeup of the parties has flipped since Lincoln’s day, the regional split between them has not. The only comfort Honest Abe could have taken in watching yesterday’s proceedings is that Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was not calling for secession, but was the sole Republican member of the committee to vote in favor of confirming Ms. Sotomayor.
Fifty-five years went by after Lincoln’s assassination before women were granted the right to vote, so Abe might have displayed some confusion about how the issue of abortion rights could have replaced the issue of the right to own slaves as the most divisive issue of the day. Yet, somehow I think Lincoln would have recognized a pattern. It is still southern, white, gentlemen who are demanding a right to dictate terms and deny some American citizens their full rights. These southern white gentlemen are still consumed with racial animus. It could hardly escape Lincoln’s notice that the primary objection to Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation was that she had occasionally noted that white men were less inclined than Latina women to show empathy for the victims of race or gender prejudice.
There is a good reason that Democrats stock the Judiciary Committee with Union members and that the Republicans stock it with members of the Old Confederacy. Both parties want to be sure of their votes on the committee. But, I think it is a shame that the committee is so split by region. I think the Democrats should allow a member or two from the South to join the committee. I think Abe Lincoln would want it that way.
