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Senate panel to approve Obama Supreme Court pick
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Senate panel to approve Obama Supreme Court pick
AFP - Tuesday, July 28
WASHINGTON (AFP) - - In a long-anticipated win for US President Barack Obama, a key senate panel was due Tuesday to vote in favor of Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation as the first Hispanic justice on the US Supreme Court.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee, where Obama's Democrats enjoy a 12-7 seat edge, was to send the appeals court judge's historic nomination to the full Senate for virtually certain final approval.
Democrats, at least on paper, have the 60 votes needed to ensure her confirmation and were set to rally a handful of Republicans as well in a vote due before lawmakers leave for a month-long break August 7.
Even some of her most vocal critics have predicted that Sotomayor will be confirmed to the lifetime appointment, replacing retiring justice David Souter on the nine-seat high court that is the final arbiter of the US Constitution.
The justices are called to decide some of the most contentious disputes in US politics and society, including over abortion, gun rights, freedom of speech and controversial national security tactics.
The lack of suspense may be welcome at the White House, which has been unable to marshal sizeable Democratic majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives to push through a sweeping overhaul of US health care.
The Princeton-educated jurist would be the second woman currently on the court, alongside Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the third to serve on the bench after retired justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
The Sotomayor nomination is fraught with political overtones and may set the stage for a far more contentious confirmation fight if, as is expected, Obama is faced with another supreme court vacancy.
Republicans say privately they worry about hurting the party with Hispanic voters, who went 67 percent to Obama and 31 percent to his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, in November 2008.
Hispanics, the fastest-growing US minority, have a major presence in key states such as Florida and election battlegrounds like New Mexico and Arizona.
But the powerful National Rifle Association gun rights group has come out against Sotomayor, a step likely to make any Republican defectors think twice and could cause headaches for Democrats in major gun-owning states.
Over four days of hearings before the committee, Sotomayor fought back against charges of racial bias, professing "fidelity to the law" as her highest virtue and disavowing a past comment that a "wise Latina" might be a better judge than a white male.
Sotomayor repudiated the comment, which drew charges of racism from some of her critics, as "a rhetorical flourish that fell flat."
"I want to state up front, unequivocally and without doubt, I do not believe that any ethnic, racial or gender group has an advantage in sound judging," the appeals court judge told lawmakers.
Her comments came in response to questions by the panel's top Republican, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, about her 2001 remark: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion" than a white judge.
Time and time again, Sotomayor, 55, followed tradition by ducking questions on issues that could soon come before the court, leaving her critics openly expressing frustration.
She said Obama had not asked her position on abortion -- one of the most volatile issues in US politics -- before nominating her.
And she shied from openly criticizing alleged "war on terrorism" abuses under George W. Bush, but denounced the high court's 1944 defense of World War II-era imprisoning of Japanese Americans as an "inconceivable" wartime excess.
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The US Senate Judiciary Committee's top Republican Jeff Sessions, seen here on July 14, has said he will vote against Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation as the first Hispanic justice of the US Supreme Court.
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