WASHINGTON — The historic confirmation Thursday of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the nation's newest justice will bring new perspectives to the Supreme Court, and not just because she will be its first Latino.
After three days of debate, the Senate voted 68 to 31 in her favor, with nine Republicans crossing party lines to support her.
During the debate and confirmation hearings, her experience as a Latina seemed to overshadow discussions about her qualifications. But her background will probably affect her thinking and influence her decisions in ways that were hardly mentioned in the Senate fight.
After she is sworn into office Saturday, she will be the only justice whose first language is not English. She has had diabetes since childhood -- a medical condition classified as a disability under federal law. She was raised in a Bronx housing project where drugs were more common than Ivy League college success. And the 111th justice is a divorced woman with no children.
Sotomayor, the 55-year-old daughter of Puerto Rican parents, watched the vote in a conference room at the federal courthouse in Manhattan where she served as an appellate judge. Other judges and court workers celebrated with Sotomayor, who took a call from her mother after the vote was completed.
"Mommy, I have people here," she said, before conversing briefly in Spanish. When she left the courthouse, she declined to answer questions from reporters, saying: "I'm going to be with my friends."
More Republicans than expected voted for Sotomayor, given the partisan nature of recent Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
"Sixty-eight votes is a victory for the White House," said John Geer, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University. "If the Obama administration got that kind of support for healthcare, they would be dancing down Pennsylvania Avenue."
President Obama praised the result. "With this historic vote, the Senate has affirmed that Judge Sotomayor has the intellect, the temperament, the history, the integrity and the independence of mind to ably serve on our nation's highest court," he said.
But Sotomayor's rejection of Obama's assertion that empathy is a crucial qualification for the court had Republicans claiming victory too Thursday, saying it would be harder now for the president to nominate a liberal jurist if there is another court vacancy.
