Thursday, July 16, 2009

Questions for Sotomayor 1 Day More

Barring a monumental mistake, Sonia Sotomayor has to endure only a few more hours in the witness chair before she can look ahead to her eventual confirmation as a Supreme Court justice.

Sotomayor returns for a third and final day of questioning Thursday, having avoided saying much on a range of hot-button issues, including guns and abortion.

Sotomayor, 55, has been a federal judge for 17 years, the last 11 on the appeals court in New York. President Barack Obama nominated her to take the seat of Justice David Souter, who retired last month.

A vote by the full Senate to confirm her is expected in early August, time enough to allow her to take the judicial oath and participate in a scheduled hearing Sept. 9 on a case involving federal campaign finance law.

Once she finishes testifying, Republicans plan to call New Haven, Conn., firefighter Frank Ricci, who passed a promotion exam only to see the city toss out the results because too few minorities qualified for promotion.

His ensuing discrimination complaint gives the GOP another chance to portray Sotomayor as a judge who allows her bias to dictate the outcome of a case.

Sotomayor has said repeatedly that her panel was bound by precedent, an assertion that was challenged in an opinion by fellow Judge Jose Cabranes, her one-time mentor.

In 10 hours of questioning over two days, Sotomayor has warded off frequent attempts to get her to weigh in on any major issue that could come before her as a justice.

Echoing comments she made on other topics throughout the day, Sotomayor said, "All I can say to you is what the court's done and the standard that the court has applied. We don't make policy choices on the court; we look at the case before us."

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