美国首位西班牙裔女法官

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"The yeas are 68 and the nays are 31."

The US Senate handed President Barack Obama an historic victory Thursday as it overwhelmingly approved his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to be the first Hispanic justice on the US Supreme Court.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid: "This is truly historic for our entire nation, but especially for the young Latinos in this country who will see in Judge Sotomayor concrete evidence of the heights to which they can legitimately aspire."

Democrats hailed Sotomayor as a fair-minded jurist with 17 years of experience as a federal judge.

Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy: "She is a judge of  unimpeachable character and integrity."

But most Republicans claimed Sotomayor lacked impartiality and voted against her nomination.

Orrin Hatch is Utah's senior senator. "I am very very concerned about this nomination. I feel very badly that I have to vote negatively. It's not what I wanted to do when this process started. But I believe that I'm doing the honorable and right thing even though I feel badly about it."

Ultimately, the Senate voted 68 to 31 to confirm Sotomayor with 9 Republicans breaking ranks. Less than a half hour after the Senate vote, President Obama praised the Supreme Court's newest edition.

"Like so many other aspects of this nation, I'm filled with pride in this achievement and great confidence that Judge Sotomayor will make an outstanding Supreme Court justice."

Sotomayor will be the third woman justice to sit on the Supreme Court. A swearing-in ceremony will happen at the US Supreme Court building on Saturday.

Jon Decker, Reuters.