 Sotomayor 's nomination won praise from Democrats and liberals , and Democrats appeared to have sufficient votes to confirm her . The strongest criticism of her nomination came from conservatives and some Republican senators regarding a line she had used in similar forms in a number of her speeches , particularly in a 2001 Berkeley Law lecture : " I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn 't lived that life . " Sotomayor had made similar remarks in other speeches between 1994 and 2003 , including one she submitted as part of her confirmation questionnaire for the Court of Appeals in 1998 , but they had attracted little attention at the time . The remark now became widely known . The rhetoric quickly became inflamed , with radio commentator Rush Limbaugh and former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich calling Sotomayor a " racist " ( although the latter later backtracked from that claim ) , while John Cornyn and other Republican senators denounced such attacks but said that Sotomayor 's approach was troubling . Backers of Sotomayor offered a variety of explanations in defense of the remark , and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stated that Sotomayor 's word choice in 2001 had been " poor " . Sotomayor subsequently clarified her remark through Senate Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy , saying that while life experience shapes who one is , " ultimately and completely " a judge follows the law regardless of personal background . Of her cases , the Second Circuit rulings in Ricci v. DeStefano received the most attention during the early nomination discussion , motivated by the Republican desire to focus on the reverse racial discrimination aspect of the case . In the midst of her confirmation process the Supreme Court overturned that ruling on June 29 . A third line of Republican attack against Sotomayor was based on her ruling in Maloney v. Cuomo and was motivated by gun ownership advocates concerned about her interpretation of Second Amendment rights . Some of the fervor with which conservatives and Republicans viewed the Sotomayor nomination was due to their grievances over the history of federal judicial nomination battles going back to the 1987 Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination . 
