Today will likely be the last day Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will face questioning on Capitol Hill by the Senate Judiciary Committee. After more than 10 hours of questioning by committee member, Sotomayor has kept her cool and her personal opinions mostly private. Witnesses invited from both sides will comment on Sotomayor’s nomination.
If confirmed, Sotomayor will be the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. Yesterday, she testified that President Obama did not ask her about abortion rights or any other “specific legal issue” before nominating her.
Throughout her testimony, Sotomayor has had to answer senators on matters ranging from campaign finance law to the workload of the court. Some Democratic and Republican have expressed frustration that some of her answers have been evasive. Sotomayor declined repeatedly to answer questions designed to show her views on a woman’s right to end a pregnancy. She said she could not address the issue in the abstract because the issue is likely to come before the court.
Public witnesses will begin this afternoon, divided into five panels. The highest profile testimony will come on behalf of Senate Republicans from two New Haven, Conn, firefighters, including Frank Ricci, the lead plaintiff in Sotomayor’s most controversial case. The circuit court on which Sotomayor sat ruled against white firefighters who sued the city after it threw out a promotions exam because not enough black or Hispanics qualified for advancement.
Other witnesses will include: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Federal Bureau of Investigations Director Louis Freeh and former New York Yankee pitcher David Cone, who will discuss Sotomayor’s famous ruling that terminated the Major League Baseball strike in the mid-1990s.
Republicans will call on law professors and attorneys including Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life and a high-profile opponent of Sotomayor on the abortion issue.
Please watch hearing live here.
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