Almost no one expected Texas Sen. John Cornyn to vote favorably for Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Even after he called her record "pretty much in the mainstream," he couldn’t put his vote where his mouth was, not given his role as National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman.
But Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison could have put the posturing aside and supported confirmation of a well-qualified candidate with 17 years on the federal bench plus experience as a prosecutor and private-practice lawyer.
Instead, Hutchison cited Sotomayor’s Senate Judiciary Committee testimony as evidence that she didn’t share the senator’s "conviction that the Constitution protects the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms."
That plays right into the unfair misperception that Sotomayor’s record and statements demonstrate hostility toward gun rights.
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