Senate Expected to Confirm Sotomayor in August

NY Times: Senate Likely to Vote on Sotomayor in August, by Neil A. Lewis:

WASHINGTON — Judge Sonia Sotomayor completed her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, acknowledging regret for having said that a “wise Latina” judge could decide a case better than a white man while defending her role in a case involving New Haven firefighters in which she was reversed by the Supreme Court.

But over her four days in the witness chair, Judge Sotomayor provided Republicans little ammunition with which to block the Senate from approving her elevation to the Supreme Court, where she would become the nation’s first Hispanic justice.

Senior Republican staff aides said in interviews they expected that at least one and perhaps as many as three of the panel’s seven Republicans might vote to approve the Sotomayor nomination and send it to the full Senate, which is expected to confirm her in the first week in August. . . .