More on Sotomayor as 'safe' SCOTUS choice

Contrary to my plea to go for real diversity to replace David Souter, President Barack Obama went with the clearly ‘safe’ choice of Sonia Sotomayor.

That said, I would put Sotomayor at B/B-minus range for what she brings to the court, on an early reading.

Why, you may ask?

First, re a SCOTUSblog review on civil cases, there's not much on her on some of the "burning issues," such as "presidentialism," politely called "executive privilege."

I quote:

First Amendment - Speech: Sotomayor has considered First Amendment issues relatively infrequently.

And:

Abortion Rights: Although Sotomayor has not had a case dealing directly with abortion rights...

Also, beyond Riverkeeper, she's not had much on environmental law.

And, she's not that good, at least vis-a-vis the executive, on civil liberties/privacy:

In two cases involving requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Sotomayor wrote an opinion that declined to order the release of the requested information, explaining that she did not want to “unreasonably hamper agencies in their decision-making.”

And, that's not all.

Interesting that SCOTUSblog doesn’t even mention the Niehoff case (PDF), yet another of those cases where judges chip away at free-speech rights of minors at school.

And, it gets worse.

At least some religious conservatives are playing her up on issues such as churches’ freedom from some labor law issues, which the White House itself is trumpeting.

For those reasons, Americans United for Separation of Church and State is concerned.

She's not as much a stealth candidate as Souter, but I stand by the idea that she's relatively thin in her rulings.

She's OK, but, we all know Obama could have done better. (If he didn't mind a bit more of a fight, but not THAT much more.)