Sonia Sotomayor Confirmed for Supreme Court

Kind of anticlimactic, but Judge Sotomayor's been confirmed. From the Los Angeles Times, "Senate Confirms Sonia Sotomayor for Supreme Court":

Sonia Sotomayor completed an unlikely and historic journey today, one that began with her birth in a Bronx, New York, housing project 55 years ago and culminated in her confirmation as the Supreme Court's 111th justice.

When she is sworn into office, Sotomayor will take her place as the high court's first Latino and just its third woman. She was approved by a 68-31 Senate vote after three days of debate. Nine Republicans crossed party lines to support her.

Sotomayor was nominated in May by President Obama to replace retiring Justice David H. Souter. A judge on the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals for the last 11 years, Sotomayor worked her way through two Ivy League schools and was a Manhattan prosecutor and corporate lawyer before joining the federal bench.

But the pride felt by Latino groups over her historic nomination quickly gave way to a firestorm, as critics seized upon a speech Sotomayor gave to a group of students in 2001. Sotomayor suggested that her life experience as a Latina shaped her judging, and her remarks became known, almost notoriously, as the "wise Latina" speech.

Sotomayor's opponents charged that the speech and some of her decisions on the bench showed an inclination to use the law to favor disadvantaged minority groups. And they pointed to one case in particular -- in which Sotomayor's appellate court panel threw out a discrimination suit brought by white firefighters in New Haven, Conn. -- as evidence of their claim.

But the controversy never appeared to seriously threaten her nomination.

See also, The Hill, "Senate Confirms Sotomayor, First Hispanic Justice (via Memeorandum).