Sonia Sotomayor 1st Hispanic Woman to reach Supreme Court

Sonia Sotomayor (photo)

New Supreme Court Justice

By Julie Hirschfeld Davis

Associated Press Writer

Edited for length

Washington -Sonia Sotomayor won confirmation Thursday as the nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice in a history-making Senate vote that capped a summer-long debate heavy with ethnic politics. She'll be sworn in Saturday as the court's 111th justice, third woman and first nominee by a Democrat in 15 years. The Senate vote was 68-31 to confirm Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee.

The 55-year-old daughter of Puerto Rican parents was raised in a South Bronx housing project and educated in the Ivy League before rising to the highest legal echelons, spending the past 17 years as a federal judge.

Obama, the nation's first black president, praised the Senate's vote as "breaking another barrier and moving us yet another step closer to a more perfect union."

Minutes before the vote, Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the Senate's lone Hispanic Democrat, said, "History awaits, and so does an anxious Hispanic community in this country." "When she places her hand on the Bible and takes the oath of office, the new portrait of the justices of the Supreme Court will clearly reflect who we are as a nation, what we stand for as a fair, just and hopeful people."

The Senate chamber was heavy with history as senators took the rare step of assembling at their desks on for the vote, rising from their seats to call out "aye" or "nay." The longest-serving senator, 91-year-old Robert Byrd of West Virginia who has been in frail health following a long hospitalization, was brought in in a wheelchair to vote in Sotomayor's favor. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., suffering from brain cancer, was the only senator absent.

Sotomayor replaces retiring Justice David Souter, a liberal named by a Republican president, and she is not expected to alter the court's ideological split.

Her writings and speeches "reflect a belief not just that impartiality is not possible, but that it's not even worth the effort," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the minority leader. "In Judge Sotomayor's court, groups that didn't make the cut of preferred groups often found that they ended up on the short end of the empathy standard."

Democrats, for their part, hailed the vote as a breakthrough achievement for the country, on par with enactment of civil rights laws. They warned Republicans they risked a backlash from Hispanic voters in the short term and an enduring black mark on their party in history books by opposing Sotomayor's confirmation.

A number of GOP senators argued Sotomayor's speeches and record made her unacceptable. They pointed to rulings in which they said she showed disregard for gun rights, property rights and job discrimination claims by white employees. And they repeatedly cited comments she had made about the role that a judge's background and perspective can play, especially a 2001 speech in which she said she hoped a "wise Latina" judge would usually make better decisions than a white man.

In the final tally, nine Republicans joined majority Democrats and the Senate's two independents to support Sotomayor's confirmation.They included the Senate's few GOP moderates and its lone Hispanic Republican, retiring Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, as well as conservative Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the party's third-ranking leader.

The Republicans who voted for her said that they might disagree with some of her rulings, statements or views, but that she was well-qualified to serve on the nation's highest court.