page_title: Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination
section_title: Witness testimony
hierarchical_section_title: Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination / Confirmation hearing / Day 4 (July 16) / Witness testimony
caption_attribution_description: A panel of guests giving testimony about Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who are being sworn in before the Senate Judiciary committee.
context_page_description: On May 26, 2009, President Barack Obama announced his selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to replace retiring Justice David Souter. Sotomayor's nomination was submitted to the United States Senate on June 1, 2009, when the 111th Congress reconvened after its Memorial Day recess. Sotomayor was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 6, 2009 by a 68–31 vote and was commissioned by President Obama the same day. She was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts on August 8, 2009.
  When nominated, Sotomayor was a sitting judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, a position to which she had been appointed by Bill Clinton in 1998. Earlier, she served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, appointed by George H. W. Bush in 1992.
context_section_description: Witness testimony began with Kim Askew and Mary Boies, representing the Standing Committee of the American Bar Association, who reviewed Sotomayor as "highly qualified".
  The second series of testimonies involved the Ricci v. DeStefano case. Attorney General of Arkansas Dustin McDaniel, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York County District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, and Leader of the Conference of Civil Rights Professor Wade Henderson testified in support of Sotomayor.  Peter Kirsanow of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and Linda Chavez of the Center for Equal Opportunity as well as firefighters Frank Ricci and Lieutenant Ben Vargas testified in opposition to Sotomayor's confirmation.
  In the third series of testimonies, Louis Freeh, former associate of Sotomayor and former FBI Director, Chuck Canterbury of the Fraternal Order of Police, former MLB player David Cone, Kate Stith of Yale Law School all advocated in favor of Sotomayor's confirmation, and Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life, former National Rifle Association president Sandy Froman, David Kopel of the Independence Institute, and Ilya Somin of the George Mason University School of Law all advocated against Sotomayor's confirmation.
  In the fourth series of testimonies, Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez of New York, President of the Hispanic National Bar Association Ramona Romero, and former Sotomayor associate Theodore Shaw of the Columbia Law School, all advocated Sotomayor's confirmation, and Tim Jeffries of P7 Enterprises opposed Sotomayor's confirmation. Neomi Rao of the George Mason University School of Law, John McGinnis of the Northwestern University School of Law, and Nick Rosenkranz of the Georgetown University Law Center also gave testimonies, but stated that they neither opposed, nor advocated Sotomayor's confirmation.
  In the fifth series of testimonies, Congressman José Serrano of New York, Patricia Hynes of the New York Bar Association and JoAnne A. Epps of the National Association of Women Lawyers all advocated Sotomayor's confirmation, and Stephen Holbrook of the National Rifle Association opposed Sotomayor's confirmation, while David B. Rivkin of the law firm Baker & Hostetler stated that he neither opposed, nor advocated Sotomayor's confirmation.
caption: The third panel of testimony being sworn in before the Judiciary Committee.
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