Sotomayor swearing in court

Saturday, August 8, 2009 at 10:12 pm

Sotomayor swearing in court, Sonia Sotomayor is sworn in Saturday to the Supreme Court, she’ll be able to claim two firsts: first Hispanic justice and first high court member to have her oath-taking made available to TV cameras.

Sotomayor, who won a groundbreaking Senate confirmation vote Thursday over intense conservative opposition, will be sworn in twice by Chief Justice John Roberts.

She will repeat one oath as prescribed by the Constitution in a private ceremony at the high court. It will be open only to members of Sotomayor’s family. Then, Roberts will administer a second oath, taken by judges, with the new justice’s family and friends, and reporters present.

Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said the ceremony apparently will be the first one open to television cameras in the court’s history.

Sotomayor is the first Democratic nominee in 15 years. She becomes the nation’s 111th justice — and just the third woman in the court’s history. She’ll appear next week at the White House with President Barack Obama, who chose her in May to replace retiring Justice David Souter.

“With this historic vote, the Senate has affirmed that Justice Sotomayor has the intellect, the temperament, the history, the integrity and the independence of mind to ably serve on our nation’s highest court,” Obama said following Thursday’s 68-31 confirmation vote.

Senate Democrats backed her unanimously but most Republicans lined up in a show of opposition both for her and for the president’s standards for a justice.

The 55-year-old daughter of Puerto Rican parents was raised in a South Bronx housing project and educated in the Ivy League before rising to the highest legal echelons, spending the past 17 years as a federal judge.

Republicans argued that she’d bring personal bias and a liberal agenda to the bench. But Democrats praised Sotomayor as an extraordinarily qualified mainstream moderate and touted her elevation to the court as a milestone in the nation’s journey toward greater equality and a reaffirmation of the American dream.

Sotomayor swearing in court

From World:

Todays news from U.S. News

Advertisement

Email Subscription

Advertisement