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An utterly unsurprising vote in the United States Senate was Story of the Day in a slow summer news environment. Judge Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as a Justice on the Supreme Court by a 68-31 majority. The native of The Bronx from a Puerto Rican family becomes the third woman to sit on the nation's highest court and its first Hispanic. NBC and CBS led with her success. ABC chose an unconfirmed assassination in the mountains of southern Waziristan. A missile attack by an unmanned CIA drone has probably killed Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban rebellion in Pakistan's northwest frontier region.

Sotomayor had answered the Senate's questions "without a major misstep," ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg reminded us, so her confirmation had been "all but certain." She identified the two major sticking points for the 31 Republicans who opposed her as her judicial views on gun rights and on affirmative action. NBC' Pete Williams pointed out that four of the nine Republicans who did support Sotomayor plan to leave the Senate and will not seek reelection. On CBS, Wyatt Andrews compared Sotomayor's 68 approving votes with the previous two Justices to be confirmed--more than Samuel Alito's 58; fewer than John Thomas' 78.

"Bursting with pride," was the way Sandra Hughes described the Latino reaction to the Senate vote on CBS. Wise Latina Woman is now a popular T-shirt slogan and a role-model cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz, showing a young girl playing courtroom "has become a hot seller at art galleries." Hughes pointed out that Hispanics represent 15% of the entire population, but less than 4% of its lawyers and only 3% of its judges.

Andrew Tyndall 8/7/09 9:26:53 pm

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