• Sotomayor continues "to put the finishing touches on a detailed Senate questionnaire in advance of her courtesy calls to Senate leaders today," the Washington Post reports.

• The nominee "probably wouldn't bring a big change to the court's ideological balance, but in at least one area, she would likely make an immediate difference: oral arguments," the Wall Street Journal reports. "If confirmed, Judge Sotomayor would arrive on a high court where conservatives have tended to dominate oral arguments in recent years."

• "Conservatives are demanding that Senate Republicans take a harder line on" Sotomayor, Politico reports. "In a letter to be delivered to Senate Republicans today, more than 145 conservatives -- including Grover Norquist, Richard Viguerie and Gary Bauer -- call for a filibuster of Sotomayor's nomination if that's what it takes to force a 'great debate' over judicial philosophy."

• "The letter was organized by the Manuel Miranda, a former adviser on judicial issues to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee," the New York Times reports. "Mr. Miranda now runs the Third Branch Conference, a coalition of conservatives focused on judges."

• "Most of the 34 of Sotomayor's Yale Law School classmates interviewed for" a Yale Daily News article "attested to her practicality and intelligence both as a student and a jurist."

• The idea for a letter praising Sotomayor signed by 45 of her law clerks "sprang up spontaneously among the clerks, and as soon as the far-flung group could be reached, the letter developed and caught on quickly," the Blog of Legal Times reports.