Hearings End Today - With Potentially Delayed Vote:  Today is the last day of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee votes on Judge Sotomayor's confirmation.  As Amy Harder has reported over on The Ninth Justice, Judge Sotomayor has faced questions from Senator Coburn (R-OK) on the Second Amendment, Senator Cornyn (R-TX) attempted to "[p]it Sotomayor against Obama", and Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) asked her to address gay marriage.  One interesting comment involved the issue of identity politics, which Judge Sotomayor described as "politics based simply on a person's characteristics, generally referred to either race or ethnicity or gender, religion."  Harder reports that after Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked her if she embraced identity politics, Judge Sotomayor emphasized that as she understands it, the term is ""usually denigrated. And that I don't believe in. Whatever a group advocates, obviously it advocates on behalf of its interests, but I would never endorse a group advocating something that's contrary to some basic Constitutional right as it's known at the time."  This all seems to play into earlier accusations that Judge Sotomayor's "wise Latina" comment indicated she would not be an impartial Justice.  As Balkinization guest blogger Alexander Tsesis commented yesterday, Judge Sotomayor has done well defending herself in the face of such accusations.  He does note, that while Judge Sotomayor has made it sound as though she will remain impartial,  "let's not kid ourselves into believing that personality has no role in decisionmaking." If she is confirmed, we will get to see how Judge Sotomayor's personality plays a role in her decisionmaking."  As CongressDaily's Dan Friedman reports over on The Ninth Justice, the vote may be delayed until July 28th. 

"Revisiting Rosen":  Volokh Conspiracy blogger Randy Barnett follows the lead of Jennifer Rubin at Contentions, who wonders whether Jeffrey Rosen may have been correct to criticize Judge Sotomayor back in May.  Rubin writes "Rosen was trying to warn his liberal compatriots that they could do 'better' than Sotomayor. He was right and should get some credit for his effort."  For Rubin, the confirmation hearings have not helped Rosen's concerns that Judge Sotomayor may have the best command of technical legal details.  Rubin comments that "[w]hether examining her verbal skills, her command of the law or her intellectual acuity, I come away thinking she is one of the least impressive Supreme Court nominees to come along in recent memory." Barnett comments that "[a]fter forcing myself to watch much of the hearings, I wonder if those who criticized [Rosen] then are having any second thoughts today."