Judge Sotomayor's confirmation as a member of the court of appeals

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Interesting factoids:

When Bill Clinton nominated Judge Sotomayor to the 2nd Circuit in 1998, she was confirmed by a vote of 67-29 with four Senators not voting.

Forty-two of the forty-five Democratic Senators voted to confirm. Three (Glenn, Hollings, and Moseley-Braun) did not vote. No Democrat voted against her confirmation.

Of the fifty-five repub senators at the time (including Jeffords who had not yet switched parties), 25 voted for her confirmation, 29 voted against and one (Kit Bond of Missouri) did not vote.

Of the 25 repubs that voted for her, only seven are still members of the repub caucus in theSenate (Bennet, Cochran, Collins, Gregg, Hatch, Lugar, and Snowe). Specter has switched parties. All of the others retired or were defeated in the ensuing decade. In terms of a filibuster strategy, it seems highly unlikely that either Snowe or Collins -- members of the Gang of 14 -- would support a repub filibuster or would even vote against her.

Of the 29 repubs that voted against her, only 11 are still in the repub caucus (Brownback, Enzi, Grassley, Hutchison, Inhofe, Kyl, McCain, McConnell, Roberts, Sessons, and Shelby). Of those, all can be expected to vote against her again and all of them, I believe would be likely to support a filibuster, with the remote possible exceptions of McCain and Hutchison (both face campaigns in which the Hispanic vote will be critical and, in McCain's case, he was a member of the Gang of 14 and thus I can see him voting to allow a vote, but then voting against the nomination as a way of showing how "maverick-y" he is.

[Jennicut]

1. I think Snowe and Collins will vote for her, they want another woman on

the Supreme Court, and Sotomayor is highly qualified on top of it.

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2. agreed

The one with a hard decision is Hutchison. My guess is that while it may hurt her in the general, she will have to vote against Sotomayor in order to firm up her standing with the repubs voting in the primary.

[Cha]

3. Oh good, she gets to be between

a rock and a hard place or her own politics.