Senate Judiciary Committee Votes To Confirm Sotomayor; Full Senate Expected To Vote Next Week

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Litigation / Medical Malpractice
Article Date: 29 Jul 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday voted 13-6 in favor of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation to the Supreme Court, the AP/Yahoo! News reports. All Democrats and one Republican -- Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) -- supported the nomination (AP/Yahoo! News, 7/28). The full Senate is expected to vote on the nomination before the August recess, The Hill reports (Rushing, The Hill, 7/27).

Sotomayor likely will be confirmed by the full Senate, as almost all Senate Democrats have said they will vote to confirm and Republicans have pledged not to filibuster. In addition to Graham, four other Republicans have said they will support Sotomayor's confirmation -- Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Richard Lugar (Ind.), Mel Martinez (Fla.) and Olympia Snowe (Maine) (The Hill, 7/27).

On Monday, Senate Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) became the latest Republican to say he would vote against Sotomayor. He said, "At her confirmation hearing, ... I was not convinced that Judge Sotomayor understands the rights given to Americans under the Constitution, or that she will refrain from expanding or restricting those rights based on her personal preferences." Grassley added, "There's no doubt that Judge Sotomayor has the credentials on paper to be a justice on the Supreme Court," but "her nomination hearing left me with more questions than answers about her judicial philosophy, and I cannot support her nomination" (Phillips, "The Caucus," New York Times, 7/27).

Graham said, "I don't know how you could say she's not qualified for the job; her record is long and deep -- it's left of center but within the mainstream." He added that "her speeches disturbed me, but I'm not going to make the judgment based on a speech; I'm going to look at her actual record" (Raju, Politico, 7/28).

Americans United for Life urged senators to vote against Sotomayor and noted that the group will include the vote in its annual scorecard. The group said that it is concerned she would "undermine any efforts by our elected representatives to pass even the most widely accepted regulations on abortion and circumvent the will of the people" (Hirschfeld Davis, AP/Google, 7/28).

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