Republicans contest Obama's Supreme Court choice

By Andrew Quinn

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, promised on Monday to apply the law impartially as Republicans used the first day of her confirmation hearings to repeatedly question her objectivity.

Sotomayor, 55, is widely expected to be confirmed as the first Hispanic justice on the ideologically-divided Supreme Court, whose nine members rule on key Constitutional issues such as the death penalty, abortion and gun rights.

In her opening statement, Sotomayor recounted her "uniquely American" resume as the daughter of Puerto Rican parents who moved from New York housing projects through Ivy League classrooms and on to become an appeals court judge.

And she sought to defang Republican critics, who have portrayed her May 26 nomination by Obama as part of a plan to appoint liberal "activists" to the Supreme Court to drive changes in social policy.

"Many Senators have asked me about my judicial philosophy. It is simple: fidelity to the law. The task of a judge is not to make the law - it is to apply the law."

Sotomayor's statement came at the end of the first day of hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Republicans are fighting an uphill battle against her nomination. The hearings are expected to continue for several days.

Republicans have all but conceded they lack the votes to stop the Democratic-run Senate from approving Sotomayor to the life-time post. Many on both sides of the aisle agree she has outstanding legal qualifications.

"Unless you have a complete meltdown, you're going to get confirmed," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Sotomayor, saying he had not decided how he would vote.

Other Republicans had no such doubts, and brought up elements of Sotomayor's record that they said showed she would put personal bias or "empathy" above legal statute.

"We remain focused on some of the fundamental questions about the philosophy of Judge Sotomayor," Senator Jeff Sessions, the top ranking Republican on the committee, said after Monday's hearing.

He said Sotomayor's record was in some ways "a rather serious critique of the classic ideal of blind justice."

POSITIONS UNCLEAR

Sotomayor's positions on a number of important divisive legal issues including abortion and gun rights remain murky.

Most observers expect her to fill the role of retired Justice David Souter and keep the court's ideological balance unchanged at 5-4 in favor of conservatives.

During the hearing, Republicans repeatedly brought up two examples from Sotomayor's record that they call problematic.