Sonia Sotomayor Sotomayor's ruling. On June 25, 1997, Sotomayor was nominated by President Bill Clinton to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which was vacated by J. Daniel Mahoney. Her nomination was initially expected to have smooth sailing, with the American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary giving her a "well qualified" professional assessment. However, as "The New York Times" described, "[it became] embroiled in the sometimes tortured judicial politics of the Senate." Some in the Republican majority believed Clinton was eager to name the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice and that an easy
Hispanic and Latino Americans Hispanic and Latino Americans Hispanic Americans and Latino Americans (, ) are people in the United States who are descendants of people from countries of Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. The United States has the largest population of Latinos and Hispanics outside of Latin America. More generally, it includes all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino, whether of full or partial ancestry. For the 2010 United States Census, people counted as "Hispanic" or "Latino" were those who identified as one of the specific Hispanic or Latino categories listed on the census questionnaire ("Mexican", "Puerto