• "Two leading Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee announced their opposition to the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor on Monday" -- Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Charles Grassley of Iowa, the New York Times reports.

• Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., also plans to vote no, The Oklahoman reports.

• The Judiciary Committee today "is expected to vote overwhelmingly to back the nomination of" Sotomayor, "and conservatives are mobilizing to use the vote against vulnerable Democrats in next year's elections," McClatchy Newspapers reports.

• Keep track of which senators are committing to yes or no votes with NationalJournal.com's Vote Tracker.

• "In deciding to vote in large measure against Sotomayor, despite near-unanimous feeling that she has the résumé to serve, the GOP is perpetuating the argument that qualifications alone are no longer enough to judge fitness for the court," Politico reports.

• Grassley and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, "said their votes against Sotomayor would be their first 'no' votes on a Supreme Court nominee, and they pointed to changed standards in the Senate," the Los Angeles Times reports. The newspaper quotes Grassley as saying, "I think it's a whole new ballgame, a lot different than I approached it with" Clinton nominees Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

• "Republicans are divided on the politically perplexing question of how to vote on Sotomayor," AP reports. "Many are eager to please their core supporters by opposing her but fear a backlash by Hispanic voters, a fast-growing part of the electorate, if they do so."

• "Three of the Republicans supporting Sotomayor -- Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Richard Lugar (Ind.), and Olympia Snowe (Maine) -- are among the least conservative Republicans in the Senate," the Blog of Legal Times reports. "A fourth, Sen. Mel Martinez (Fla.), cited their shared Hispanic heritage as one reason for supporting her."

• "Four pro-gun members of the House Hispanic Caucus fired back at the National Rifle Association for opposing" Sotomayor, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Commentary

• The Washington Post maintains that the NRA is "wrong... to distort Judge Sotomayor's record, oppose her confirmation and threaten to use lawmakers' votes against them."

• "Of all the generalities and evasions that" Sotomayor "offered the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearing, surely the strangest was one she made when describing her role in the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund" regarding the group's abortion advocacy, Americans United For Life President Charmaine Yoest opines in Human Events.

• The Miami Herald says it is "disappointing" that Supreme Court confirmation votes are becoming more partisan.

• John McWhorter contends that the flare-ups over Sotomayor's ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano and the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates are "precisely the 'conversation' on race that Attorney General Eric Holder claims does not happen in America."