GOP envisions August Senate vote on Sotomayor

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By David Espo and Julie Hirschfeld ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republicans cleared the way Thursday for a Senate vote next month to confirm Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, placing her firmly in line to become the first Hispanic justice.

"I look forward to you getting that vote before we recess in August," said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, not long before Sotomayor concluded four grueling days in the panel's witness chair.

If confirmed, she would become the first justice appointed by a Democratic president in 15 years, and one lawmaker prodded her to use her skills to challenge the court's conservative wing in the years ahead.

"It is my hope that ... you'll use some of those characteristics of your litigation experience to battle out the ideas that you believe in," said Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican-turned-Democrat.

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While Sotomayor's confirmation was assured, Republicans on the committee gave her critics a platform, underscoring the racial subtext of her appointment.

Frank Ricci, a New Haven, Conn., firefighter at the center of a reverse-discrimination case, told the panel that "achievement is neither limited nor determined by one's race but by one's skills, dedication, commitment and character."

Ricci, who is white, was denied a promotion when city officials scrapped an exam, concluding that too few minorities had qualified. His challenge was rejected by Sotomayor and two other appeals court judges in a brief order, a ruling the Supreme Court recently overturned.

Sotomayor has said repeatedly that her panel was bound by precedent, an assertion that was challenged in an opinion by fellow appeals Judge Jose Cabranes, her one-time mentor. On Thursday, she sidestepped pointed questions from Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who demanded to know what precedents she relied on for the decision.

As for a final vote on her confirmation, Sessions said he would not support any attempt to block Senate action and didn't believe any other Republican would, either.