• "As the Senate begins debate today on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor with the outcome assured, the only remaining questions are whether the National Rifle Assn. can claim to have swayed votes against her and whether President Obama can claim a victory for bipartisanship," the Los Angeles Times reports.

• Senators will "begin a highly orchestrated floor debate expected to be long on political posturing but short on substance or suspense," Roll Call (subscription) reports.

• "Democratic Senate leaders are planning to make the vote on Sotomayor the last thing lawmakers do before leaving town for a month-long recess," USA Today reports.

• "Republicans have lined up almost solidly against" Obama's "nominee, taking what strategists in both parties call a steep political risk in opposing Sotomayor, although a handful of GOP senators are siding with Democrats to support her," AP reports.

• "Cementing his role as" Obama's "critic-in-chief," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., "announced Monday that he'll vote against" Sotomayor, Politico reports.

• Keep tabs on which senators have committed to yes or no votes with NationalJournal.com's Vote Tracker.

• "After sailing through her Senate hearings," Sotomayor "went back to New York on July 17 and stayed there -- except for one quick trip to D.C. for more courtesy calls on the Hill," the Washington Post reports. "She's been going to her courthouse office, but isn't allowed to sit on cases while the Senate vote is pending. So she's spending time with family and friends, taking staff to lunch, clerks to dinner."

• "The Sotomayor nomination is the latest in the increasingly partisan battle over judicial nominations, including lower-court nominations," CQ Politics reports. "And the way Republicans have largely united against Sotomayor signals trouble for" Obama's "future Supreme Court nominations should Democrats lose seats in the midterm elections."

• "A vote close to the party line is becoming increasingly likely," NationalJournal.com reports. "But don't tell the White House, where the buzzword 'bipartisan' has adhered to Sotomayor's confirmation, seemingly out of habit. Press secretary Robert Gibbs even cited Sotomayor's nomination as an example of bipartisanship on Friday."

• "After years of losing, gun control advocates say this week's vote on confirming" Sotomayor "will be their long-awaited win that shatters conventional wisdom and proves that the Second Amendment is no longer the unstoppable force of Washington politics," the Washington Times reports.

• "By at least one measure," Sotomayor "is likely the most liberal Supreme Court nominee in more than 40 years," NationalJournal.com reports. "Sotomayor's ranking is a preliminary finding by Stony Brook University political science professor Jeffrey Segal, who parses newspaper editorials to score high court nominees on their perceived qualifications and ideology."

Commentary

• "As Hispanics are on the verge of seeing one of their own reach the high court, and as they hold the ear of the Obama White House on critical issues like immigration reform, Republicans in Congress have yet to show any real qualms about voting against the political or policy interests of Hispanics," journalist Gebe Martinez remarks in Politico.

• In the Philadelphia Inquirer, GOP Senate candidate Pat Toomey writes that if he were a senator, he would vote for Sotomayor's confirmation, "because objective qualifications should matter more than ideology in the judicial confirmation process."

• Stuart Taylor Jr. scrutinizes the argument that Sotomayor was following precedent in Ricci v. DeStefano.