Sessions predicts Sotomayor vote by recess

WASHINGTON, July 16 (UPI) -- The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Thursday his party would not try to filibuster Sonia Sotomayor's U.S. Supreme Court nomination.

"I will not support and I don't think any member of this side will support a filibuster or any attempt to block a vote on your nomination," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., told the nominee during her fourth day of confirmation hearings. "We all need to take our time and think it through and cast it honestly ... . But I look forward to you getting that vote before we recess in August."

Sotomayor finished her testimony and the panel prepared to take statements from other witnesses.

During his second round of questioning, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., may have tipped his hand about how he will vote, even as he said some of her comments "bug the hell out of me."

"I think fundamentally, judge, you're able, after all these years of being a judge, to embrace a right that you may not want for yourself, to allow others to do things that are not comfortable to you, but for the group, they're necessary," Graham said. "That's what makes you, to me, more acceptable as a judge and not a activist, because an activist would be a judge who would be champing ... to change America through the Supreme Court by taking their view of life and imposing it on the rest of us."

Among the witnesses listed on the Judiciary Committee's Web site are Frank Ricci and Ben Vargas of the New Haven, Conn., fire department. The two challenged the city's decision to toss results of promotion examinations -- a decision Sotomayor affirmed on appeal as part of a three-judge panel. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the appellate court's ruling.