Obama's top court choice faces battle ahead

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's choice of Sonia Sotomayor to join the U.S. Supreme Court will generate a sharp political battle in the Senate over her liberal positions but she is likely to prevail.

Sotomayor's selection would do little to change the court's 5-4 conservative majority as she replaces another liberal. Republicans promised to her give her respectful, rigorous scrutiny during the summer months.

She would be the first Hispanic and second woman on the high court, and fulfills Obama's objective of choosing someone without a privileged background, given that she grew up in a housing project in the Bronx in New York City.

* If confirmed by the Senate, she would replace the retiring David Souter, who was a reliable liberal vote for the court's minority.

Souter was known as "Bush's mistake," because he was far more liberal than the Republican President George H. W. Bush realized when he chose him.

Obama's choice was evidence that he did not intend to make the same mistake, since Sotomayor, unlike Souter, has staked out fairly liberal positions on many issues.

* Obama's choice will produce more fireworks in her Senate confirmation battle than any of the other people who were on Obama's short list.

Given the Democrats' strong majority in the 100-member Senate, it appeared unlikely Republicans would be able to derail her appointment or drag it out indefinitely.

The White House said Sotomayor had received bipartisan support in the past, since the same Republican Bush had nominated her as a trial judge in New York in 1991.

But 29 Republicans, a third of the Senate, voted against her in 1998 when she was elevated to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals out of concerns she was too much of a judicial activist.

Those included two current party elders, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

As Obama mulled potential nominees whose names had been leaked by the White House, Sotomayor drew the most scornful comments from opposition Republicans, who prefer judges who strictly interpret the U.S. Constitution and not make policy from the bench.

Conservatives have pointed to a comment she made at Duke University's law school in 2005 when she said that the Court of Appeals is "where policy is made".

* The nomination poses a predicament for Republicans -- how hard to go after her at a time when party leaders would like to stem the exodus of Hispanic voters from their ranks.

Republican strategist Scott Reed said Republicans "need to point out that she's a liberal with some out-of-the-mainstream ideas about the judiciary".

"I think that the Hispanic woman is a smart choice. But this has to get beyond cosmetics and get down to her record. The smart Republicans will focus on her record, not her gender and her heritage," Reed said.

(Editing by Simon Denyer and Sandra Maler)