Day 3 of the Sotomayor Confirmation Hearing

Today, day three of the hearing starts at 9:30 a.m. Senators Cornyn, Cardin, Coburn, Whitehouse, Klobuchar, Kaufman, Specter and Franken still need to question Judge Sotomayor to finish round one of the questioning. Once the first round of questions is complete, the Committee will break and hold a closed session with Judge Sotomayor. The closed session is routine procedure for Supreme Court nominees and will involve questions about her FBI background check. The hearing will reconvene following the closed session and lunch break in the afternoon to start the second round of questions when senators are permitted up to 20 minutes of questioning. At the end of the day yesterday, however, Chairman Leahy politely asked senators who do not need their full 20 minutes for questions to be brief so that the hearing does not drag on.