The New York Times
August 7, 2009
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, concluding a 10-week battle with a resounding victory for the White House.
The largely party-line vote, 68 to 31, brought Judge Sotomayor, 55, to the threshold of one of the United States’ most prestigious institutions, completing an extraordinary narrative arc that began in a Bronx housing project where the Puerto Rican girl was raised by her widowed mother.
In brief remarks at the White House, President Obama hailed her confirmation as “breaking yet another barrier and moving us yet another step closer to a more perfect union.”
“With this historic vote,” he said, “the Senate has affirmed that Judge Sotomayor has the intellect, the temperament, the history, the integrity and the independence of mind to ably serve on our nation’s highest court.”
A White House spokesman said the judge watched the vote on television in her chambers in New York City, and she released no statement. But when Judge Sotomayor returned to her West Village home Thursday night, she beamed and waved at neighbors who lined the sidewalks to clap and shout encouragement.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is expected to swear the new justice in at a private ceremony at the Supreme Court on Saturday morning, a court spokeswoman said.
Leaders of conservative groups had tried to delay the confirmation vote, but Democrats pushed it through to ensure that Judge Sotomayor would be installed by September, when the court takes up a campaign-finance case left over from its last term. She is not expected to alter the balance of the court on most issues, as her views appear to be similar to those of David H. Souter, the retired justice she is succeeding.
Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/07/us/politics/07confirm.html?th&emc=th
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