Sonia Sotomayor Confirmed as Next Supreme Court Justice

As anticipated, the Senate by a vote of 68-31 has confirmed the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court. The floor debate had been largely considered ceremonial, as the Senate Judiciary Committee cleared her nomination last Tuesday by a margin of 13-6, primarily along party lines. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was the only Republican to approve her nomination. In recent days, a number of Republican Senators have joined Graham in his support of Sotomayor, which made today’s floor vote somewhat anticlimactic.

Sotomayor will be the first Hispanic woman to hold a seat on the high court. Sotomayor has spent the majority of her career in the public sector, most notably as an appointed judge to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the District Court for the Southern District of New York. Sotomayor’s opinions in labor and employment matters have tended to favor plaintiffs/employees more often than not. In particular, Sotomayor was part of the three-member Second Circuit panel that affirmed the lower court’s opinion in Ricci v. DeStefano, the reverse discrimination decision that was recently overturned by the Supreme Court. It is expected that Sotomayor will continue what is often termed her predecessor’s moderate to liberal approach to case interpretation as a member of the Supreme Court.