On Sept. 8, the Supreme Court will hold a special invitation-only investiture ceremony at which Justice Sotomayor will take her seat on the dais for the first time. President Obama was not present at today’s swearing-in, but the White House will host a reception for Justice Sotomayor on Wednesday.

The Judicial Oath ceremony in the East Conference Room will be open to pool coverage. A formal investiture ceremony will take place on Tuesday, September 8, at 2 p.m. at a special sitting of the Court in the Courtroom. Further details regarding that ceremony and other opportunities for coverage will be provided as they become available.

Justice Sotomayor will be on the bench for the Sept. 9 reargument of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (08-205) and her first full term will begin Oct. 5. As the 111th Justice, she is the third female, third minority, and first Hispanic jurist to sit on the nation’s highest court. In filling the vacancy left by retired Justice David H. Souter, Justice Sotomayor is the 17th Justice in the bench’s fifth seat. At 55, she is the second youngest current Justice; Chief Justice John G. Roberts is 54.

Sixty-four Senators have expressed commitment to vote for Judge Sotomayor and about 31 have expressed opposition, with five uncommitted. Below, I’ve listed the Senate vote on each of the currently seated Supreme Court Justices and retired Justice David H. Souter, whose seat Judge Sotomayor will fill:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, September 29, 2005, 78 – 22

Justice Samuel A. Alito, January 31, 2006, 58 – 42

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, July 29, 1994, 87-9

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, August 03, 1993, 96-3

Justice Clarence Thomas, October 15, 1991, 52-48

Retired Justice David H. Souter, October 02, 1990, 90-9

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, February 03, 1988, 97-0

Justice Antonin Scalia,  September 17, 1986, 98-0

Justice John Paul Stevens, December 17, 1975, 98-0

The Senate session will commence at 2:15  p.m. and can be streamed live on C-SPAN.org. A final vote in the Senate on Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation will almost certainly take place this week.

The Senate is expected to begin debate on Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation tomorrow. More than 20 Republican Senators have expressed that they will vote against Judge Sotomayor and have proposed a four-day floor debate before the vote.

The six Republican senators who voted against Judge Sotomayor each referenced his concern with her speeches and law review articles, but conceded that her bench record placed her in the mainstream of judicial philosophy. The minority committee members said they believed Judge Sotomayor had rejected President Obama’s “radical empathy standard” for Justices. Sen. Tom Coburn, Okla., said that he could not “vote for her because she wouldn’t defend what she said;” he would rather she had stood by her statements and proved why she will be an impartial judge. Sen. Charles Grassley, Iowa, was the only Senator to express regret that he had voted to confirm retired Justice David H. Souter in 1990.

The one Republican senator to vote for Judge Sotomayor, Sen. Lindsey Graham, S.C., said that “this empathy idea makes us all Dr. Phils.”  But Sen. Graham also demonstrated some empathy, stating that he understood the perspective of his Democratic colleagues who had voted for Chief Justice John G. Roberts in 2005. He said he was voting for a person he would not have chosen, but recognized is well-qualified. Sen. Graham maintained the candor he showed during the hearings and said that Judge Sotomayor’s nomination is not a major shift in the balance of power on the Court: she can be “no worse than Souter” in the Republican point of view.

Throughout the hearings, broad discussion of legal theory and the direction of the Court were rare, but percolated below the Senators’ questioning on specific precedents.  Sen. John Cornyn, Tex. said he thought the hearings process showed a consensus that “original intent, not foreign law” is the proper mode of Constitutional interpretation and approached an agreement with the Hamiltonian vision of the Judiciary outlined in Federalist 78. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, R.I., said that his Republican colleagues are entitled to their point of view on the law, but “resists the effort to define that as a judicial norm against which any other view is to be seen as an abberation.” He sharply stated that he believes the Repubilcan “definition of justice in America is just plain wrong, both as history and as justice.”

Looking ahead to future vacancies on the Court, Sen. Charles Schumer, N.Y., said this process has shown that Republican colleagues will never support anyone nominated by President Obama, no matter how moderate her record. There was a bipartisan call for reform of the advise and consent process, as Senators agreed that the hearings in recent years have become “theater” in which the nominee avoids making any candid statement about her views. Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisc., recommended that before future hearings, a bipartisan group should be assembled of Judiciary committee members, members of the bar, constitutional scholars, and members of the media to  draft questions on which the committee can expect specific answers from the nominee.

Video of the session can be seen here.

Sen. Cornyn, Tex., said: “I will vote against confirmation of Judge Sotomayor to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. I will vote with the certain knowledge that she will be confirmed despite my vote. I wish her well. I congratulate her on her historic achievement. I know she will be an inspiration to young people – within the Hispanic community and beyond.”

Sen. Hatch, Utah, said: “After thoroughly reviewing Judge Sotomayor’s record and being able to hear her testimony and responses during the hearing process, I reluctantly, and with a heavy heart, have found that I cannot support her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. In truth, I wish President Obama had chosen a Hispanic nominee that all Senators could support. I believe it would have done a great deal for our great country. Although Judge Sotomayor has a compelling life story and dedication to public service, her statements and record were too much at odds with the principles about the judiciary in which I deeply believe.”

Sen. Hatch voted for Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Second Circuit in 1998.

Ranking Minority member Sen. Jeff Sessions, Ala., has not expressed how he intends to vote nor have Republican Senators Charles Grassley, Iowa, and Tom Coburn, Okla.  Sen. Lindsey Graham, S.C., is the only Republican member of the Judiciary committee to say that he will vote for Judge Sotomayor.

A committee vote is scheduled, but not guaranteed to occur, next Tuesday, July 28.

The Senate Judiciary committee has postponed a vote on Judge Sotomayor’s nomination until next Tuesday,  July 28.  Four Republican Senators who are not on the committee–Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Richard Lugar of Indiana and Mel Martinez of Florida — have announced they will vote for Sotomayor when a vote comes before the full Senate. Judge Sotomayor is expected to be confirmed before the Senate recesses in August and to be seated by the time Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (08-205) is reargued before the Court (Sept. 9).

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on Judge Sotomayor’s nomination tomorrow at 10 a.m. (but it is uncertain whether the vote will occur). The meeting will be web cast here.

Our blog’s live coverage will begin at 9:30 a.m. EDT tomorrow.

An (incomplete) review of the senators’ written statements and oral testimony finds the phrase “balls and strikes” used 11 times, “umpire” or “umpires” used 16 times, and “playing field” used twice today. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., perhaps appealing to his Big 12 base, went for a football simile instead. Once all of the written statements are submitted to the record and the transcripts are finalized, I’ll update with a complete word count. Excerpts of the senators’ sports infused language are below the jump:

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.:

Such an approach to judging means that the umpire calling the game is not neutral, but instead feels empowered to favor one team over the other.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.:

Also, it showed me that Supreme Court justices are much more than umpires calling balls and strikes and that the word activist often is used only to describe opinions of one side.

So I do not believe that Supreme Court justices are merely umpires calling balls and strikes. Rather I believe that they make the decisions of individuals who bring to the court their own experiences and philosophies.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.:

It made these decisions by interpreting and applying open-ended language in our Constitution like ‘equal protection of the laws,’ ‘due process of law,’ ‘freedom of the press,’ ‘unreasonable searches and seizures,’ and ‘the right to bear arms.’ These momentous decisions were not simply the result of an umpire calling balls and strikes.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.:

Just short of four years ago, then-Judge Roberts sat where Judge Sotomayor is sitting. He told us that his jurisprudence would be characterized by “modesty and humility.” He illustrated this with a now well-known quote: “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules. They apply them.”

It made these decisions by interpreting and applying open-ended language in our Constitution like ‘equal protection of the laws,’ ‘due process of law,’ ‘freedom of the press,’ ‘unreasonable searches and seizures,’ and ‘the right to bear arms.’ These momentous decisions were not simply the result of an umpire calling balls and strikes.

But any objective review of Judge Sotomayor’s record on the Second Circuit leaves no doubt that she has simply called balls and strikes for 17 years far more closely than Chief Justice Roberts has during his four years on the Supreme Court.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex.:

To borrow a football analogy, a lower court judge is like the quarterback who executes the plays – not the coach who calls the plays.

But a few of your opinions do raise questions – because they suggest the kinds of plays you’d call if you were promoted to the coaching staff.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.:

We expect a judge to merely call balls and strikes? Maybe so, maybe not. But we certainly don’t expect them to sympathize with one party over the other, and that’s where empathy comes from.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.:

I particularly reject the analogy of a judge to an “umpire” who merely calls “balls and strikes.” If judging were that mechanical, we would not need nine Supreme Court Justices. The task of an appellate judge, particularly on a court of final appeal, is often to define the strike zone, within a matrix of Constitutional principle, legislative intent, and statutory construction.

The “umpire” analogy is belied by Chief Justice Roberts, though he cast himself as an “umpire” during his confirmation hearings.

…the infamous Ledbetter decision, for instance; the Louisville and Seattle integration cases; the first limitation on Roe v. Wade that outright disregards the woman’s health and safety; and the DC Heller decision, discovering a constitutional right to own guns that the Court had not previously noticed in 220 years. Some “balls and strikes.”

The liberties in our Constitution have their boundaries defined, in the gray and overlapping areas, by informed judgment. None of this is “balls and strikes.”

Sen. Ted Kaufman, D-Dela.:

A judge, or a court, has to call the game the same way for all sides. Fundamental fairness requires that in the courtroom, everyone comes to the plate with the same count of no balls and no strikes.

One of the aspirations of the American judicial system is that it is a place where the powerless have a chance for justice on a level playing field with the powerful.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.:

Second, I am concerned that Americans are facing new barriers to defending their individual rights. The Supreme Court is the last court in the land where an individual is promised a level playing field and can seek to right a wrong.