Obama Picks Supreme Court Nominee

President Obama has selected his nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court justice David Souter. New York judge Sonia Sotomayor would become the court’s first Hispanic. The Wall Street Journal reports :

The president, in introducing Ms. Sotomayor at the White House Tuesday morning, praised her “sterling” legal credentials and “distinguished career.”

Ms. Sotomayor was pushed hard by Latino legal organizations and by New York Sen. Charles Schumer, who pressed her case as a relative moderate on the president’s short list. Mr. Obama decided on Ms. Sotomayor Monday afternoon; he had met with her Thursday in the White House . . . .

But even conservative Sen. Orrin Hatch, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold confirmation hearings likely this summer, has singled out Ms. Sotomayor as a compelling choice. She grew up in a housing project in New York City’s South Bronx neighborhood and went on to graduate summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1976, and she was editor of the Yale Law Journal, graduating in 1979 . . . .

The 54-year-old judge was first appointed to the federal bench by President George H. W. Bush and elevated to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bill Clinton.

Ms. Sotomayor’s Puerto Rican heritage would make her the first Hispanic to become a Supreme Court justice — though some court historians say that Justice Benjamin Cardozo, who served on the high court from 1932 to 1938 and was a distant descendent of Portuguese Jews, would qualify for that distinction.

Republicans blocked Ms. Sotomayor’s appeals-court nomination for more than a year to make it less likely she would someday be appointed to the Supreme Court, but she eventually won confirmation in 1998. In 1995, she sided with the baseball players’ union in issuing an injunction preventing the owners from establishing new work rules with a new collective-bargaining agreement. That ruling led to the end of a seven-month strike.