The Senate Judiciary Committee has set Monday, July 13 for the start of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
"In selecting this date I am trying to be fair to all concerned," said Judiciary Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy said in a statement covered by the Washington Post's 44 blog. "I want to be fair to the nominee and allow her the earliest possible opportunity to respond to the attacks made about her character."
Republicans had hoped for a later start date for the hearings, the blog reports, mentioning Sen. Jeff Sessions' statement on Meet the Press in May: "I don't think that this should be rushed. I don't believe we can do this before August."
Leahy said that the time gap between Sotomayor's nomination announcement and start of the confirmation hearing closely tracks the 48-day time period between now-Chief Justice John Roberts' nomination and confirmation hearing in 2005. And four years ago, Democrats demanded more time and called for more documents to be released on Roberts, according to the Washington Post's Capitol Briefing blog.