Today Senator Patrick Leahy announced that confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justice nominee Elena Kagan will begin Monday, June 28th. According to the AP, "the schedule should allow the hearings to be completed before senators go home for a weeklong break in early July," thus enabling a vote before they adjourn for August recess. Of course, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary committee quickly issued a statement questioning whether the time frame "will be adequate to allow us to meet our important constitutional responsibility to thoroughly review Ms. Kagan's record on behalf of the American people." But assuming Republicans can't postpone this indefinitely, what are Kagan's odds? more ›

Now that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has announced his retirement, many are expecting a contentious confirmation for whomever President Obama chooses to replace him. Senator Charles Schumer expressed his concerns to NY1, "Justice Sotomayor who was clearly a progressive, but you know, she had a compelling life story and was amazing, did get a whole bunch of Republican votes. Hopefully the same thing will happen here, but yeah, I'm worried." Here's a look at possible candidates to replace Stevens and Slate offers what the Court needs now. Also, did you know that Scores named a champagne room after Stevens? more ›

Bronx native and federal judge Sonia Sotomayor found out she was confirmed to serve on the Supreme Court by watching it in the 8th floor of a Manhattan federal courthouse conference room. The Daily News reports that the cheers started when it was official and she received a phone call, "'Mommy, I have people here,' Sotomayor told her - to laughs in the room. They spoke briefly in Spanish before hanging up, and the misty-eyed Suprema nueva told her friends, 'My mother is so happy she's crying.'" And while celebrating at a party with her close friends, she wanted to know the Yankees' score and said that when she gets a break, "I'm going to go to a Yankee game." And the NY Times examined the pride the Puerto Rican community has taken with Sotomayor's rise, "In New York, many have welcomed the judge’s visibility during a summer when the most celebrated — and reviled — local politicians were two Puerto Rican state senators who brought the state government to a standstill by mounting an abortive coup against their fellow Democrats." more ›

The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor as an associate Supreme Court justice today, in a 68-31 vote. The NY Times reports, "Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation was never in much doubt, given Democrats’ numerical advantage in the Senate. But the final vote — 68 to 31 — represented a partisan divide. No Democrat voted against her, while all but 9 of the chamber’s 40 Republicans did so. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, is ailing and did not vote." She will be the third female justice on the Supreme Court and (some say) the Court's first Hispanic justic. more ›

Federal judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court is front page news around the country and especially in her hometown of New York. And as Republicans gear up to voice criticism of her, Democrats are ready—and excited. The former executive director of the Democratic National Committee Mark Siegel tells the Daily News, "I'm not only ecstatic, I pray that the Republicans do a frontal attack on her. Thirty-one percent [of the Hispanic vote] is too much for them. I want them to go down to three." And a Florida pollster who surveyed Hispanic voters for Obama's campaign told Politico, "The picture of an African-American president standing next to a Hispanic woman as his first choice for the Supreme Court — that picture is the worst nightmare for the Republican Party." more ›

It's official: Hillary Clinton is the new Secretary of State. Senator John Cornyn (aka "Big Bad John") had blocked an Inauguration Day confirmation and, today, Senator John McCain helped pave the way for a voice vote in the Senate. more ›

Yesterday, it was revealed that Treasury nominee Timothy Geithner didn't pay $34,000 in taxes between 2001 and 2004. Geithner, according to the NY Times, "huddled privately with members of the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday afternoon to explain that he had now paid the back taxes and interest" (though he didn't pay most of it until last November). Now his confirmation hearings have been postponed. more ›