Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has to satisfy Congress members to attain a seat on the bench and Connecticut court cases are coming up during the daylong grilling.
News reports and analysis trickling down from Washington claim she sidestepped a question about whether the high court went beyond its authority in 2005 when it ruled that governments may seize property for private development projects.
The case in question is from New London. The high court ruled 5-4 against Susette Kelo, who brought a lawsuit against municipal officials who seized her pink cottage for private development.
Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa had sought at Tuesday's hearing to probe Sotomayor's beliefs about property rights.
She did say she respected the "right of property owners to have their day in court."
Another case discussed Tuesday is a New Haven a reverse discrimination case. Sotomayor responded to a question from Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, by saying that "all precedents of the Supreme Court I consider settled law," subject to the possibility of subsequent reversal, such as when the court last month renounced a previous precedent in a reverse discrimination case.
The nation’s top court ruled 5-4 on the side of white firefighters from New Haven, who challenged a decision by the city to discard the results of an employee test in which they fared better than minorities who took the examination.
