August 07, 2009 03:02 AM UTC

Justice Sonia Sotomayor

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• by: Colorado Pols

AP reports, since Tom Tancredo lives here we figured it was worth a note for posterity:

Sotomayor replaces retiring Justice David Souter, a liberal named by a Republican president, and she is not expected to alter the court’s ideological split.

Still, Republicans and Democrats were deeply at odds over confirming Sotomayor, and the battle over her nomination highlighted profound philosophical disagreements that will shape future fights over the court’s makeup as Obama looks to another likely vacancy – perhaps more than one – while he’s in the White House.

In the final tally, nine Republicans joined majority Democrats and the Senate’s two independents to support Sotomayor’s confirmation. They included the Senate’s few GOP moderates and its lone Hispanic Republican, retiring Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, as well as conservative Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the party’s third-ranking leader.

GOP critics decried Obama’s call for “empathy” in a justice, painting Sotomayor as the embodiment of an inappropriate standard that would let a judge bring her personal whims and prejudices to the bench.