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Washington PostWASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's pick to fill his first U.S. Supreme Court vacancy, Sonia Sotomayor, goes before a Senate hearing on Monday with most people betting she already has enough votes to win confirmation.
Sotomayor, now an appeals court judge, stands ready to become the first Hispanic justice on the court which rules on Constitutional questions as well as controversial issues including abortion, gun control and the death penalty.
Sotomayor, 55, goes into Monday's hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee with plenty of momentum. She received the top rating from the influential American Bar Association, and new polls show a slim majority of Americans believe she should be confirmed for the lifetime job.
But the hearing, which begins at 10 a.m. EDT/1400 GMT and is expected to last most of the week, should provide plenty of political drama as Republicans seek to spotlight what they fear will be Sotomayor's -- and by extension Obama's -- "activist" approach to the law.
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