Sotomayor Is Obama’s Pick for the High Court

President Obama on Tuesday nominated federal judge Sonia Sotomayor to join the Supreme Court to fill the seat being vacated by Justice David Souter. Sotomayor would become the first Latino and only the third woman to sit on the high court. The nomination is certain to set off Republican grumbles in the Senate, with some considering her too much of a “judicial activist” for the job.

In 2001, referring to her cultural and socioeconomic background — Sotomayor grew up in a project in the South Bronx — she said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

You go, girl!

The Los Angeles Times:

President Obama today nominated federal judge Sonia Sotomayor of New York for the Supreme Court, positioning the longtime federal jurist to become the first Latino and only the third woman on the nation’s highest court.

[…] Obama, who has said that he wants a new justice with “a common touch” and a measure of “empathy,” also is offering a measure of ethnic diversity to a court dominated by white men in his replacement of the retiring Justice David Souter. The nine-member court includes just one female justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and one black justice, Clarence Thomas.

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For a summary of some of Sotomayor’s opinions in civil cases, check out the Supreme Court blog here.