Obama nominates Sotomayor to Supreme Court

WASHINGTON -- President Obama's historic choice of appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor would give the nation's highest court its first Latina voice, a second female perspective, and for the first time in nearly two decades the experience of an individual from a truly humble background.

Sotomayor, 54, the child of Puerto Rican immigrants, was raised in a housing project in the Bronx. Her father died when she was 9. Her mother worked six days a week as a nurse to support her daughter and a son. Sotomayor won a scholarship to Princeton and then attended Yale Law School.

In announcing her nomination to succeed retiring Justice David Souter, President Obama called Sotomayor an "inspiring woman who I believe will make a great justice."

With her standing at his side at the White House, Obama noted that Sotomayor's legal career over the three decades included tenure as a New York prosecutor, corporate litigator and trial judge (appointed by the first President Bush in 1992) before becoming an appeals court judge (elevated by President Clinton in 1998).

Obama said she has the depth of legal experience necessary for the high court yet has also been "tested by obstacles and hardships" and brings the common touch he has sought.

"My heart today is bursting with gratitude," Sotomayor said. "I stand on the shoulders of countless people." Sotomayor then singled out her "life aspiration," her mother whom she said devoted herself to her daughter and son, who became a physician.

All nine of the current justices are former federal appeals court judges. As a sitting judge, Sotomayor would not break that pattern. Yet, her distinct background would bring the kind of "quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles" that Obama has famously said he was seeking.

Not since the 1991 nomination of Clarence Thomas, born in poverty near Savannah and reared by grandparents, has a nominee overcome such personal odds.

Sotomayor would be the second woman on the current court, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the third woman ever appointed. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who retired in 2006, was the first when she was named in 1981.