Those 31 Republican senators who stretched out on the tracks and let the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor run over them may somehow feel better for the gesture. But the political pain could linger afterward.

Chances are her confirmation in spite of them as the first Hispanic-American on the highest court will be remembered -- with help from the Democrats -- when the nation's largest-growing ethnic bloc troops to the polls next year, and again in 2012.

It didn't have to turn out that way. In 2001, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, with a record as a strong vote getter among Latinos, entered won the White House with the promise of luring that critical national constituency into the GOP family.

Bush made his Texas lawyer, Alberto Gonzales, his White House counsel and then his attorney general, and the man he nicknamed Fredo seemed for a time on course to eventual nomination to the Supreme Court himself.

But some funny things happened on the way to that destination, including the erosion of public confidence in a subservient Justice Department under him. The hapless Gonzales became entangled in the national debate over detention and torture of suspected terrorists and left Washington as soiled political goods.

Bush twice failed -- with the departures of Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and William Rehnquist -- to nominate a Hispanic-American to either of the vacancies. So President Obama quickly seized the opportunity to do so when Justice David Souter retired.

The man who had recently made history as the first African-American president made more of it in selecting the daughter of Puerto Rican parents to replace the moderate Republican from New Hampshire. But instead of a general rejoicing at the milestone, Sotomayor's ethnicity became fodder for Republican criticism, thanks to an unfortunate old comment that came back to bite her.

Her observation that "a wise Latina" would probably make a better judge than a white male was seized as an indication of a disqualifying lack of impartiality, in favor of racial or gender empathy. Sotomayor dismissed her comment as simply a "failed rhetorical flourish," but it didn't satisfy her senatorial critics in the Republican caucus.

In the end, however, nine GOP senators did join 57 Democrats and two independents in the 68-31 vote confirming her. Only the ailing and absent Sen. Ted Kennedy didn't vote, but clearly he was in her corner. Sotomayor would have been confirmed easily without any Republican votes, so the Grand Old Party majority seemed to be going out of its way to shrug off the constituency it supposedly was eager to court.

The nine Republican votes for the new justice included fellow Hispanic Mel Martinez of Florida and the party's most moderate senators, such as Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Richard Lugar of Indiana and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. One of Sotomayor's most aggressive interrogators, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, also voted for her.

Considering the historic aspect of the nomination, her long and impressive record as a lower-court judge, and the absence of any serious challenge to her professional credentials or personal background, it was surprising that 31 Republicans held out against her.

For a time, there seemed a possibility that their delaying tactics might keep her from taking her seat on the Supreme Court in time for the traditional post-Labor Day opening of its session. But she gave her opponents little controversial to harp on.

As was the case with the two Bush appointees before her, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito, Sotomayor begged off answering questions about cases that might come before her as a member of the Court.

So once again the senators were being asked to make only an educated guess on what kind of arbiter of the law they were approving.

Sotomayor's record of 17 years as a trial and appeals court judge offered more experience than any of the sitting justices had when they were nominated by Obama predecessors. Her one vote in itself isn't expected to change the philosophical direction of this often-divided Court. But the assertive voice she aired in her confirmation hearings could prove to be another matter in its internal deliberations this fall.

 

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