WASHINGTON - - Senate Republicans, trying to make the most of a weak hand, served notice Monday that they will attack Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor over the next two days as a biased judge who cannot be fully trusted to follow the law and whose ethnic identity could sway her rulings.
They also acknowledged, however, that President Barack Obama's nominee is almost certain to win confirmation.
The Republican strategy made for an unusual opening day for the Sotomayor hearings, and it could make for lively exchanges today and Wednesday.
But Sotomayor gave no sign she is eager to play along. In a short, low-key statement, she described her now famous journey from a Bronx housing project to academic success at Princeton and Yale universities and eventually to a federal judgeship in New York. She said her judicial philosophy is "simple: fidelity to the rule of law."
While the hearings are unlikely to slow Sotomayor's march toward confirmation, they could shape the public's perception of her and Obama's decision to select her. As the hearings got under way, a CBS News poll found that 62 percent of the respondents said they were undecided about Sotomayor. Of those who had an opinion, 23 percent were favorable and 15 percent were unfavorable.
Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said Sotomayor's mostly uncontroversial judicial opinions "are not a good test because those cases were necessarily restrained by precedent and the threat of reversal. ... On the Supreme Court, those checks on judicial power will be removed and [her] philosophy will be allowed to reach full bloom."
But Sessions called her speeches, in which she talked about how a "wise Latina" would reach a "better conclusion than a white male," were "shocking and offensive to me."
"I will not vote for - no senator should vote for - an individual ... who believes it is acceptable for a judge to allow their own personal background, gender, prejudices or sympathies to sway their decision."
Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl said her speeches caused him to doubt the nominee. "Judge Sotomayor clearly rejected the notion that judges should strive for an impartial brand of justice," he said. She "endorses the view that a judge should allow her gender-, ethnic- and experience-based biases to guide her when rendering judicial opinions," he said.
