• "Foes of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor celebrated the high court's reversal of her decision in a reverse discrimination case," AP reports. "The 5-4 ruling Monday... is unlikely to derail Sotomayor's nomination -- and it may not even sway a vote."

• "The Supreme Court's rejection of a decision against white firefighters endorsed by" Sotomayor "gives Republicans a renewed chance to attack her speeches and writings but is not expected to imperil her confirmation to the high court, political and legal sources said" Monday, the Washington Post reports.

• Supporters of Sotomayor "said Monday's decision changed the law and thus did not reflect negatively on the decision she participated in," the New York Times reports. "Critics asserted that the appeals court's approach had not been fully endorsed by any justice."

• "White House officials had put in place a plan to deal with the ruling, which they clearly expected. One of their planned talking points was to point out that retiring Justice David H. Souter, whose slot Sotomayor would take, joined the dissent in backing her ruling," the Washington Post reports. "'I think its going to be hard for people to explain why this really should be a confirmation issue for her,' [a] senior White House official said."

• NationalJournal.com has a roundup of interest group reaction to the ruling and its effect on Sotomayor's nomination.

• "Elated members of the so-called New Haven 20 called the decision Monday an overdue vindication; a somber Mayor John DeStefano Jr. described it as the latest signal of a Supreme Court that has caused 'a continual erosion of civil rights law,'" the New Haven (Conn.) Register reports.

• NationalJournal.com reports on a different high court decision Monday that makes Sotomayor's confirmation a more urgent matter to some Democrats.

Top Commentary

• "Now that Ricci v. DeStefano is in the books, it's hard not to imagine WWSD: What would Sotomayor have done if she were on the court?" muses Nathan Koppel on the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog.

• "Cheer Monday's ruling or deplore it, one thing that is clear from reading the Supreme Court's 89 pages of opinions in the case is that Judge Sotomayor and her colleagues played by the old rules, and the court changed them," Linda Greenhouse maintains in the New York Times.

• "Sotomayor's handling of the case deserves to be thoroughly aired during her confirmation hearings, insofar as it reinforces concerns that she is prone to race-conscious jurisprudence," the Wall Street Journal writes.

• "Make no mistake about it: The case of Ricci v. DeStefano will come back to haunt" Sotomayor. "In a fair world, it wouldn't," Eva Rodriguez laments.

• This case "drops" Sotomayor's "record to 2 for 6 before the highest court, and she probably is the most overturned nominee to seek the high bench in history," the Washington Times opines.

• "What does all this tell us about Sotomayor the judge? Not a lot," the Chicago Tribune argues. "It's true that the court reversed her decision. But that was not hers alone."

• "With Democrats in control of the Senate, the GOP just doesn't have the numbers to keep Sotomayor off the bench (barring pubic-hair-on-the-Coke-can-type allegations or other emerging scandals)," maintains Stephanie Mencimer.

• Subscribers to National Journal's Earlybird can read more commentary on the Ricci case addressing issues beyond Sotomayor's nomination.