Sotomayor Lax in the Voting Department

(AP) - The Senate confirmed Sonia Sotomayor today as the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court. The vote was 68-31 for Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's first high court nominee. She becomes the 111th justice and just the third woman to serve. Democrats praised the 55-year-old Sotomayor as a mainstream moderate. But most Republicans voted against her, saying she'd bring personal bias and a liberal agenda to the bench. More»

(NEWSER) - In an indication that conservative Republicans are uniting against Sonia Sotomayor, Senate Judiciary Committee members John Cornyn and Orrin Hatch today pledged to vote against her, CNN reports. Though moderate Republicans worry opposition could hurt the party with Hispanics, the conservative base has lobbied hard against the Supreme Court nominee. Hatch’s decision was particularly surprising: The Utahan has voted for every nominee in his 32-year career and had praised Sotomayor’s “experience.” More»

President says nominee would probably like to 'restate' controversial 2001 comment

(NEWSER) - President Obama said yesterday that while Sonia Sotomayor would probably like to rephrase her controversial 2001 comment about race, it doesn't warrant "all this nonsense that is being spewed out by conservative critics.” In an interview with NBC that will air next week, Obama stressed that Sotomayor’s comment came as part of a longer speech that demonstrates she does not subscribe to "identity politics." More»

(NEWSER) - GOP operatives opposed to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor aren’t happy about the “help” they’re getting from Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, CQ Politics reports. Limbaugh called the nominee a “bigot” for saying “a wise Latina woman” will often make better decisions than a white man. “We’re going to attack Sotomayor with charges of reverse racism?” a Republican insider sputtered. “That’s nutty old white man talk.” More»

(NEWSER) - “Empathy” was a key part of President Obama’s vocabulary when he first started talking about his Supreme Court nominee, Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in the New York Times, but the word has disappeared. “Conservatives have hijacked empathy and turned it into an epithet,” Stolberg writes. When introducing Sonia Sotomayor, Obama spoke in “long-winded phrases” that can’t “be reduced into a convenient buzzword for the opposition.” More»