The Senate Judiciary Committee this morning endorsed Sonia Sotomayor to become an associate justice of the Supreme Court on a largely partisan vote that sends her historic nomination to the full Senate for a final decision on her confirmation.
The 13 to 6 vote came nearly two weeks after the committee's members grilled Sotomayor for 2 ½ days, eliciting answers that betrayed little indication of how the nominee, an appellate judge for the past 11 years, would rule on the most significant issues that come before the nation's highest court.
Sotomayor is President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court and would become the court's first Hispanic and its third female member. In choosing her in May, the president emphasized her Horatio Alger-like life story, rising from a poor childhood with a widowed mother in a Bronx housing project to attend two Ivy League universities, eventually becoming a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today that the full Senate probably will not begin debate on Sotomayor's confirmation until next week, although the specific schedule has not been determined. [...]
Graham, the only Republican to join Democrats in voting to send Sotomayor's nomination to the full Senate, said, "I would not have chosen her, but I understand why President Obama did." Graham called her "left of center but certainly within the mainstream. . . She can be no worse than Souter from our point of view," he said, referring to conservatives' view of David H. Souter, the retiring court member she would replace, who was appointed by a Republican president, George H.W. Bush.
Graham said his decision to support her was motivated, in part, by an effort to end the partisan fighting that has characterized some judicial nominations in recent years, when Senate Democrats filibustered several of President George W. Bush's most controversial candidates for lower federal courts. "We came perilously close to damaging an institution of the judiciary that has held this country together in different times."
"The filibusters that were going on a few years ago were historic in nature," Graham said, predicting that their continuation would "over time drive good men and woman away from wanting to be judges," rendering the judicial branch "just an extension of politics in another form."
The law, Graham said, "should be a quiet place, where even the most unpopular could have a shot. No way you can win an election but in the court you might have a shot." He also said that Sotomayor was qualified to serve on the Supreme court and said that, if, as the first Latina member, she "will inspire young women, particularly Latina women, to seek a career in the law, that would be a good thing." [...]
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) said, "These hearings have come little more than theater."
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