Sonia Sotomayor

From the hard streets of the Bronx to the hallow marbled halls of the nation's highest court, Sonia Sotomayor is President Barack Obama's choice to fill the vacated seat left by Justice David Souter.

I had little doubt that Obama would fill this position with a woman. It is in the court's best interests to appoint another woman to its bench. If her appointment is confirmed by the Senate, she will be the first Hispanic to sit on the Supreme Court, and only its third woman.

Although, these may seem like important points, what will shape the future of our country is the ideology that Sotomayor brings with her to the Supreme Court, if confirmed. From the accounts I can gather about Sotomayor from the media and her judicial record, she is a moderate-liberal. This will be an important balancing point for a court that is currently top-heavy toward the conservative spectrum of constitutional interpretation. As Sotomayor points out, the U.S. Constitution is a living document that can grow and adapt to serve the needs of the people, not the government. It is not a stagnant document that does not evolve, in which the government can manipulate in times of great national crisis. In other words, the Constitution invokes expressed and implied rights, it does not take them away.

Sotomayor is currently a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She was appointed by President George H. W. Bush to the United States District Court for Southern New York. She was later elevated by President Bill Clinton to her current position in the circuit court of appeals.