Sessions will vote against Sotomayor

After several weeks of publicly refusing to say, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) wrote Monday to announce that he'll vote against confirming Judge Sonia Sotomayor to join the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sessions had led the Republican effort on the Sotomayor nomination as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee -- a position in which he was installed only recently, after the defection of the previous ranking member, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), to the Democratic caucus.

Sessions announced that he'd oppose Sotomayor in an op-ed in USA today on Monday.

"I don't believe that Judge Sotomayor has the deep-rooted convictions necessary to resist the siren call of judicial activism. She has evoked its mantra too often," Sessions wrote. "As someone who cares deeply about our great heritage of law, I must withhold my consent."

Sessions had maintained that he was concerned by Sotomayor's record throughout the confirmation process, but had remained coy about his final vote intention as Republican colleagues on the Judiciary committee and in the Senate as a whole split, with some centrist members supporting President Obama's nominee.

(Hat tip: SenateUS)

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