WASHINGTON— Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor won her first public pledges of support Friday from Senate Republicans, after a smooth performance at her confirmation hearings that has placed her firmly on track to become the high court’s first La
WASHINGTON— Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor won her first public pledges of support Friday from Senate Republicans, after a smooth performance at her confirmation hearings that has placed her firmly on track to become the high court’s first Latina and the first Democratic-named justice in 15 years. Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the most senior Republican, announced that he would vote for Sotomayor, calling her "clearly qualified to serve on the Supreme Court," after four days of Judiciary Committee hearings in which he said she showed "a judicial temperament." Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, the Senate’s lone Hispanic Republican, also announced he will back President Barack Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee, saying he takes "great pride in her historic achievement." Their decisions broke with their party’s conservative majority, which is lining up firmly against Sotomayor. Sens. Jim Bunning of Kentucky, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Pat Roberts of Kansas have all said they intend to vote no. But Republicans — wary of the tricky politics of voting on Sotomayor’s nomination without alienating either their conservative base or Hispanic and women voters — have said they won’t try to block or even delay a vote to confirm Sotomayor. Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said Thursday that neither he nor any GOP senator he knows of is interested in holding up Sotomayor’s confirmation vote as the country’s 111th Supreme Court justice. Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who had hinted strongly that he would support Sotomayor, made it official Friday with a statement in which he said he’d vote for her and urge colleagues to do the same. Sotomayor "displayed intellect, restraint and judicial demeanor" at her hearings, Specter said. With Democrats solidly behind Sotomayor, three days of grueling questioning before the Judiciary panel gave Republicans no new ammunition to use against the 55-year-old nominee, who was raised in a South Bronx housing project, educated in the Ivy League, and rose through the legal ranks to spend 17 years on the federal bench. "I look forward to you getting that vote before we recess" on in Aug. 7, Sessions said, despite calls from some conservative activists to delay the vote until after the Senate returns in September from its summer break. "Each senator will make up their own mind," on whether to support the judge, Sessions said. Sotomayor has overwhelming if not unanimous backing from the Senate’s 58 Democrats and two independents. Democrats, sensing a big win, immediately scheduled a committee vote for Tuesday, starting the clock on a schedule for a final confirmation vote before the Senate leaves in August for a four-week summer break as well as before the next Supreme Court argument on Sept. 9. Republicans will likely ask for a weeklong delay before the panel vote, but a unified GOP front against her also seems unlikely, given the praise Sotomayor got from a couple of critics on the Judiciary Committee. Two Republicans, Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, called her judicial record "mainstream." Lugar was among the current GOP senators who voted for Sotomayor when she was confirmed to New York’s 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in 1998. The others were Robert Bennett of Utah, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Susan Collins of Maine, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Olympia Snowe of Maine. This time, the underlying politics are dicey for Republicans. They must be careful to keep faith with constituents like National Rifle Association members who oppose her, yet avoid offending the Hispanic voters who represent the fastest-growing segment of the electorate. Sotomayor’s hearings were as much a prelude for future Supreme Court fights as a battle over the judge herself. Republicans criticized Obama’s assertion — made before nominating Sotomayor — that he was looking for a justice with "the quality of empathy," and earlier a statement when he was a senator that some decisions depend on what’s in a judge’s heart. They also pressed Sotomayor repeatedly on her 2001 statement that she hoped a "wise Latina" would usually rule better than a white male, drawing expressions of regret from the nominee, who said her words were poorly chosen. Sotomayor parried all their questions on hot-button issues like guns and abortion rights and defended her speeches that have been faulted as showing bias. She was unequivocal, however, in her statements on what kind of justice she would be. "I do not permit my sympathies, personal views or prejudices to influence the outcome of my cases," she told senators. Republicans, expressing concern that she would bring bias to the court, gave a speaking role at the hearing to Frank Ricci, a white New Haven, Conn., firefighter whose reverse discrimination claim was rejected by Sotomayor and two other appeals court judges. He complained that the ruling showed a belief "that citizens should be reduced to racial statistics" but declined when given the chance to say Sotomayor’s nomination should be rejected. Her panel’s ruling was overturned last month by the Supreme Court she hopes to join. ______ Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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