Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) announced Monday that the confirmation hearing for the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court will begin at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, July 13.
The hearing will be held in room 216 Hart Senate Office Building. The hearings will webcast live online.
WATCH HERE STARTING AT 10 AM EST:
Before the hearings even began, ranking Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) went on CBS' "The Early Show" and called the nominee "outside the mainstream." While he said Sotomayor's record as a judge "is better than her speeches," he claimed that her liberalism "will flower" if she joins the Supreme Court.
The witness list:
American Bar Association Witnesses
Kim Askew, Chair of Standing Committee
Mary Boies, Primary ReviewerMajority Witnesses
Michael Bloomberg, Mayor, City of New York
Chuck Canterbury, National President, Fraternal Order of Police
David Cone, former Major League Baseball pitcher
JoAnne A. Epps, Dean, Temple University Beasley School of Law, on behalf of the National Association of Women Lawyers
Louis Freeh, former Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Michael J. Garcia, former U.S. Attorney, Southern District of New York
Wade Henderson, President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Patricia Hynes, President, New York City Bar Association
Dustin McDaniel, Attorney General, State of Arkansas
Robert Morgenthau, former District Attorney, New York County, New York
Ramona Romero, National President, Hispanic National Bar Association
Congressman Jose E. Serrano, New York 16th District
Theodore M. Shaw, Professor, Columbia Law School
Kate Stith, Lafayette S. Foster Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.Minority Witnesses
Linda Chavez, President, Center for Equal Opportunity
Sandy Froman, Esq., Former President, National Rifle Association of America
Dr. Stephen Halbrook, Attorney
Tim Jeffries, Founder, P7 Enterprises
Peter Kirsanow, Commissioner, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
David Kopel, Esq., Independence Institute
John McGinnis, Professor, Northwestern University School of Law
Neomi Rao, Professor, George Mason University School of Law
Frank Ricci, Director of Fire Services, ConnectiCOSH (Connecticut Council on Occupational Safety and Health)
David Rivkin, Esq., Partner, Baker Hostetler
Nick Rosenkranz, Professor, Georgetown University School of Law
Ilya Somin, Professor, George Mason University School of Law
Lieutenant Ben Vargas, New Haven Fire Department
Dr. Charmaine Yoest, Americans United for Life