The Senate confirmed by a vote of 68 to 31 Judge Sonia Sotomayor as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.  Judge Sotomayor will be the 111th Supreme Court justice in American history and the first Hispanic on the court.  Sen. Bernie Sanders went to the Senate floor today to express his strong support for Judge Sotomayor.  Sanders discussed the court's conservative tendencies over the last 50 years.  "I sincerely hope and have every confidence that Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court will help curb this corporatist trend and put the court back on a path of respecting the rights of individual Americans and the environmental and other laws passed by Congress."  Sanders voted for Judge Sotomayor and also thanked his colleague from Vermont, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, for "the distinguished manner in which he has led these hearings."   

Watch the senator's video here.

Senator Sanders Floor Statement:

Let me begin by congratulating my colleague from Vermont, Sen. Leahy, for the distinguished manner in which he has led these hearings.  

I rise in support of the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. 

As an Assistant District Attorney, a federal district judge for the Southern District of New York, and a federal circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Judge Sotomayor has demonstrated her eminent qualifications, impartial jurisprudence, and faithful interpretation of the US Constitution, and this body has every reason to vote today in support of her nomination.

It is no secret that, over the last fifty years, the Supreme Court has become a very conservative institution.  We are long past the days when the Court respected and dutifully applied the full implications of the Bill of Rights and vigorously protected the freedoms provided us by the founders of our country and the framers of the Constitution. 

Recently, this right-wing drift has been getting worse, not better.  The present Court has routinely favored corporate interests over the needs of working people, and the interests of the rich and powerful against those of ordinary citizens. My hope is that Judge Sotomayor will help bring balance to a Supreme Court that has now moved far to the right.    

The Court recently gutted a key provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, allowing well-financed corporations to manipulate the legislative process under the guise of free speech – as if the bill of rights were written to grant corporations the same level of constitutional protection that it does flesh-and-blood American citizens.  That is unfortunate. 

It recently made it easier for employers to avoid valid pay discrimination claims by their employees on procedural technicalities – a decision that Congress had to rectify.

And just this past term, the Court scaled back environmental protections, holding that the Clean Water Act permits a mining company to pump hundreds of thousands of gallons per day of a toxic wastewater into an Alaskan lake. 

I sincerely hope and have every confidence that Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court will help curb this corporatist trend and put the court back on a path of respecting the rights of individual Americans and the environmental and other laws passed by Congress. 

For that reason I intend to vote for Judge Sotomayor as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.