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August 6, 2009, 3:16 pm
Senate Confirms Sotomayor, 68-31
By Kate Phillips
Updated It’s official — the Senate voted 68 to 31 to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the next associate justice of the Supreme Court.
Just before the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the anticipated confirmation “truly is history for our nation.” He noted that less than six weeks after the landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, Judge Sotomayor was born in the Bronx. Her elevation to the Supreme Court, he said, would provide great inspiration for young Latinos and for women.
Once seated on the bench, she would be the third woman to reach the Supreme Court, after Sandra Day O’Connor (who retired in 2006) and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “America’s grateful that O’Connor and Ginsburg didn’t give up,” Mr. Reid said.
Afterward the vote, which included just nine Republicans in favor of confirmation, President Obama emerged at the White House and said he was “very happy” that she received the approval of 68 senators.
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