Over the past five days, several high-profile Republicans have attacked a 2001 speech by Sonia Sotomayor in which she asserted that as a Latina woman, she would offer wiser judgments than a white male judge in some cases. Last week, talk show host Rush Limbaugh accused Sotomayor of being a racist.

Rush Limbaugh: “She brings a form of bigotry or racism to the court…How can a president nominate such a candidate? And how can a party get behind such a candidate? That’s what would be asked if somebody were foolish enough to nominate David Duke or pick somebody even less offensive.”

Former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo compared Sotomayor’s past membership in the Latino advocacy group La Raza to being a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Tom Tancredo: If you belong to an organization called La Raza, in this case, which is, from my point of view anyway, just nothing more than a Latino — it’s a counterpart — it’s a Latino KKK without the hoods and — or the nooses. If you belong to something like that, you have to explain that in a way that’s going to convince me and a lot of other people that it’s got nothing to do with race, even though the logo of La Raza is 'All for the race. Nothing for the rest.'”

In response, La Raza accused Tancredo of defaming the organization and for making up the organization’s motto.