The Senate Judiciary Committee has released the list of witnesses who will testify at Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, thereby telegraphing much of their anti-Sotomayor strategy in the process.  Based on their lineup, it’s clear that Republicans plan to follow five lines of attack:

• Ricci

Front and center in the list of GOP witnesses is Frank Ricci himself, the New Haven firefighter whose promotion test results were set aside by that city, along with Ben Vargas, a lieutenant in the same fire department and Ricci’s co-plaintiff in his now-famous lawsuit.  The list also includes Peter N. Kirsanow, a George W. Bush appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (and former witness in support of nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito), and Linda Chavez, a former Reagan and Bush I Administration official and the head of a leading anti-civil rights organization.

From this list, it couldn’t be clearer that the Ricci case will be the point of the conservative spear against Sotomayor.  While Kirsanow and Chavez can be expected to testify like the GOP political operatives that they are, expect Ricci and Vargas to offer compelling statements.  By all accounts, both men were caught in unfortunate circumstances that they did not cause, and there is no indication that they are anything other than dedicated firefighters.  In other words, Republicans hope that the American people will be moved by Ricci and Vargas’ testimony and wonder why Sotomayor did not show more empathy for their circumstance.  The reason, of course, is that Sotomayor was following a binding precedent, and judges aren’t free to ignore the law simply because they are faced with compelling plaintiffs.

• Foreign Law

Recently, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) gave a floor speech claiming–falsely–that some judges believe that foreign court decisions should govern U.S. law.  No one, including Judge Sotomayor, believes this.  Nevertheless, the witness list includes Neomi Rao, Nick Rosenkranz and John McGinnis, all right-wing international law professors who are likely to share Sessions’ delusion.  David Rivkin, an advocate of limitless executive power, may also testify on the subject of foreign law.

• Second Amendment

Next up are former NRA President Sandy Froman, along with David Kopel and Stephen Halbrook, both of whom work on Second Amendment issues for the right-wing Independence Institute.  All three of them will probably make the false claim that Sotomayor was hostile to the Second Amendment when she followed a binding Supreme Court precedent holding that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states.  Apparently, the law is optional when you are a conservative.

• Eminent Domain

Ilya Somin is a radical libertarian law professor who filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to reverse Sotomayor’s decision holding that land developers must file their eminent domain claims within the three year statute of limitations.  The Supreme Court did not take Professor Somin up on this offer; apparently land developers have to follow the same laws as everyone else.

• Anti-Choice

Possibly the most interesting thing about the GOP’s witness list is that it only contains one anti-choice witness, Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life–additional evidence that cultural issues are losing their salience in American politics.

Additionally, the witness list contains one oddball, a management consultant named Tim Jeffries.  It’s unclear exactly what Jeffries has to contribute to this discussion.

In what may be the most unusual hit on Judge Sotomayor to date, the Washington Post has a long article today attacking Sotomayor because her opinions are too detailed:

During nearly 11 years on the federal appeals court in New York, Sotomayor has made herself an expert on subjects ranging from the intricacies of automobile mechanisms to the homicide risks posed by the city’s population density. Her writings have often offered a granular analysis of every piece of evidence in criminal trials, and sometimes read as if she were retrying cases from her chambers.

Legal experts said Sotomayor’s rulings fall within the mainstream of those by Democratic-appointed judges. But some were critical of her style, saying it comes close to overstepping the traditional role of appellate judges, who give considerable deference to the judges and juries that observe testimony and are considered the primary finders of fact.

The Post‘s hit on Sotomayor is ironic in light of the fact that conservatives have spent the last several weeks claiming that Sotomayor’s decisions aren’t detailed enough, but it nevertheless lacks merit.  Of course, Sotomayor should be praised, not attacked, for writing detailed and well thought out opinions; but the Post also reaches its conclusion by looking at a skewed sample of her decisions that includes the cases where a judge is most likely to be particularly detailed in drafting an opinion.

For starters, the Post only reviewed Sotomayor’s decisions in cases where at least one other judge disagreed with her and wrote a separate opinion.  But such cases are a terrible measure of how detailed a judge’s writing usually is.  When a judge is forced to defend their decision against a dissenting colleague, they virtually always flesh out their opinion considerably to rebut any claims made by the dissent.

The Post also cites a handful of cases where Sotomayor reversed a trial court because she disagreed with its findings of facts.  Although the Post is correct that appeals judges must give “considerable deference” to a trial judge’s fact finding, “considerable” does not mean “absolute.”  Rather, an appeals court is supposed to reject a trial court’s factual findings when they are “clearly erroneous.”  Moreover, it is exactly because of this high degree of deference accorded to a trial judge’s findings that appeals court decisions rejecting a trial court’s fact finding are often very long and detailed.  Because an appeals court must have a very good reason to reverse a trial court’s factfindings, a sensible appeals judge will go into great detail whenever they do so in order to explain why they are taking this unusual step.

Interestingly, the Post‘s piece quotes a former law clerk to ultra-conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who explains that Sotomayor’s opinions are “extraordinarily thorough, and a judge would ordinarily be praised for writing thorough opinions.”  Perhaps the Post should have listened to this former clerk’s advice before it published an absurd attack piece slamming Judge Sotomayor for being too good at her job.