Sotomayor confirmation hearings to begin July 13

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats, determined to seat Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court quickly, announced mid-July hearings on her nomination Tuesday in a move that surprised and angry Republicans said clouded the prospects for the nomination and other legislative business.

GOP leaders lashed out after Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, announced that he would convene the hearings on July 13 — considerably earlier than Republicans wanted — saying the date presents a "fair and adequate" schedule in line with the timeline for past Supreme Court nominees.

An upset Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, complained in a Senate speech Tuesday that Democrats are allowing too little time for senators to evaluate Sotomayor's 17-year record as a federal judge.

Hatch said Democrats demanded 70 days to examine the 15-year record of Samuel Alito when he was nominated by George W. Bush, but are giving only 48 days to evaluate Sotomayor after nomination by Barack Obama. "Oh, what a difference an election makes," Hatch said. "We are told that we must consider the largest judicial record in a century in the shortest time in modern memory."

Hatch urged Democrats to reconsider. "There is more than enough time to do the confirmation job right, to have a fair and thorough process that can have a confirmed Justice in place when the Supreme Court begins its next term in October. There is no need gratuitously to further politicize the confirmation process."

Hatch added, "Injecting such partisanship at the beginning easily can result in greater conflict and division further down the confirmation road. That is not in the best tradition of the Senate. It is not how Supreme Court nominations have been considered in the past, and it is not the way we should do this today."

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, called the Democrats' tactics "heavy-handed" and urged them to reconsider the schedule.

"Let me be clear. ... Because of what our Democratic colleagues are doing and the way they are doing it, it will now be much more difficult to achieve the kind of comity and cooperation on this and other matters that we need and expect around here," McConnell said.

President Barack Obama has urged the Senate to vote on confirming Sotomayor to the high court before it leaves for a congressional recess in August, but Republicans say they need more time to review her nearly 17-year record on the federal bench and that a September vote would provide plenty of time before the court term begins in October.