• The Legal Times reports that Sonia Sotomayor was in New York "with more than a hundred colleagues and friends at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit when the Senate roll call put her over the top for confirmation as the next justice on the Supreme Court."
• USA Today rounds up jubilant reaction from Hispanics, including this moment: "At the moment of Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation as the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court, Carmen Garcia cried, hard."
• "Now comes the hard part," the New York Times reports in an analysis. "The volume and difficulty of the work, and the task of fitting into a storied institution populated by strong and idiosyncratic personalities, has unnerved even judges with distinguished records on lower courts, fancy credentials and ample self-confidence."
• Sotomayor's "background will probably affect her thinking and influence her decisions in ways that were hardly mentioned in the Senate fight," the Los Angeles Times reports as it outlines ways in which Sotomayor brings a unique perspective to the court. For example, "she will be the only justice whose first language is not English. She has had diabetes since childhood -- a medical condition classified as a disability under federal law. She was raised in a Bronx housing project where drugs were more common than Ivy League college success. And the 111th justice is a divorced woman with no children."
• NationalJournal.com compares Sotomayor to her predecessor, David Souter, and asks: "Is there any chance these two tight-lipped jurists could share a propensity for disappointing their supporters?"
Commentary
• The Washington Post cheers Sotomayor's confirmation but is left wondering "what kind of justice" she will be "now that the burdens of precedent are no longer absolute."
• The Wall Street Journal commends Republicans for a confirmation process that "was conducted respectfully and with a cool-tempered focus on her Constitutional philosophy," though it "can't help but contrast her treatment with the way Democrats smeared and filibustered appellate-court nominee Miguel Estrada in 2001."
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