Bipartisan support for Sotomayor looks doubtful
WASHINGTON -- As the Senate begins debate Tuesday on Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court, the veteran federal judge appears assured of confirmation but without the sweeping bipartisan majority her backers hoped for the nation's first Hispanic high court pick.
Monday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., became the 27th Republican to announce he will vote against Sotomayor. The GOP's 2008 presidential nominee joins others in his party from states with large Hispanic populations, including Texans John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, and McCain's Arizona colleague, deputy Senate Republican leader Jon Kyl.
Six of the Senate's 40 Republicans have announced they will support Sotomayor when the Senate votes this week.
None of the 60 senators who caucus with the Democrats has announced opposition to Sotomayor, so the only question is her margin of victory. Democratic Senate leaders are planning to make the vote on Sotomayor the last thing lawmakers do before leaving town for a month-long recess. The timing is designed to give President Obama something to celebrate as he heads into a bruising debate on health care.
Yet the vote appears likely to underscore a problem he faces as he tries to sell his top legislative priority: his limited ability to bridge the partisan divide.
Sotomayor represents "a historic nomination by a popular president, and she can't even muster more votes than John Roberts, a conservative white guy," says Wendy Long of Judicial Confirmation Network, a conservative group opposed to Sotomayor.
Chief Justice John Roberts won 78 votes, including 22 Democrats, when he was confirmed in 2005 to replace the late William Rehnquist. President George W. Bush's second Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, was confirmed the next year by 58 senators, including four Democrats, when he replaced Sandra Day O'Connor.
Democrats hope to capitalize on what they see as a GOP snub of the nation's fastest-growing voting bloc. Hispanics have held the keys to the White House in the past two presidential elections, opening the door for Bush in 2004, when he got more than 40% of the Hispanic vote, and then for Barack Obama, who won 67% of the Hispanic vote last year.
