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Washington, DC – Today President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the seat of retiring Justice David Souter. If confirmed, Sotomayor would become the first Hispanic and third woman to serve on the High Court.

Sotomayor is a graduate of Princeton and obtained her law degree from Yale. She worked in private practice and served as Assistant District Attorney in New York County. She was nominated and was nominated to the federal district court by President George H. W. Bush and to the appeals court by President Clinton.

Despite 17 years on the bench, Sotomayor has never directly decided whether a law regulating abortion is constitutional. In Center for Reproductive Law & Policy v. Bush, she wrote an opinion that upheld the Mexico City Policy prohibiting federal funding of overseas abortions.

Sotomayor does not believe that the Second Amendment right to bear arms applies to individuals. While on a panel discussion at Duke Law School, she argued that the "Court of Appeals is where policy is made." Judge Sotomayor has had 5 decisions reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, 3 of which have been reversed. She has carried 11 of 44 possible votes during those cases. In Knight v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Chief Justice Roberts stated that her method of reading the statute in question "flies in the face of the statutory language."

In Amandola v. Town of Babylon, she wrote that denying use of a town hall annex for their worship services because the policy granted the town unfettered discretion to deny applications. The opinion, however, stated that the town constitutionally could have had a policy that banned all religious uses. That same logic was later overturned by the US Supreme Court in Good News Club v. Milford School District.

She has written a book called "The International Judge," which suggests that international law and policy should be considered in some court decisions. She has also written in support of affirmative action.

Some have described her temperament on the bench as a "bully" and "abusive" to lawyers.

Mathew D. Staver, Founder and President of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented on the nominee: "The ghost of George H. W. Bush still continues in the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. He gave us Justice David Souter and he may have given us Sotomayor. No one ever expected President Barack Obama to nominate someone who respects the original intent of the Constitution. While Sotomayor is not the easiest nomination the President was considering in his short list, she is by far not the most risky either. She has had a mixed history on cases. Her personality is not likely one that will persuade other Justices to her point of view. Her nomination does not change the makeup of the United States Supreme Court."