Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., rejected a new Republican demand today to delay the confirmation hearings of Sonia Sotomayor due to start July 13.

He said it would be a "double standard" to put off the committee hearings until September. The last two Supreme Court nominees -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito -- received hearings within 40 days of their answering committee questionnaires. Her hearings are scheduled to start 39 days after initial receipt of her questionnaire, he said.

Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., sought the delay until September at a committee meeting today, claiming her questionnaire is incomplete, with "serious gaps" in answers to questions about her work on the Yale Law Journal and as a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge. Leahy said she will provide supplemental answers, as did Roberts and Alito. "It would be a double standard to delay confirmation hearings on the Sotomayor nomination until September, and would make the Sotomayor confirmation process the longest of any sitting justice on the Supreme Court," Leahy said.