The Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC) approved Tuesday the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s nominee, to the Supreme Court.

The committee voted 13-6, with all Democrats voting for the nomination and all Republicans voting not in favor, except for Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Now that the SJC has granted its approval, the entire Senate will vote on the nomination next week.

If confirmed, Sotomayor will be the 111th justice to serve on the Supreme Court, the first Hispanic and the third woman. She is widely expected to win confirmation, as Democrats have 60 votes in the Senate and five Republicans, including Graham, have said they would vote for her.

Among the Republicans who voted against Sotomayor were two who came from states with large Hispanic voting populations. Another two, Senators Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, are committee veterans who had never voted against a nominee selected by a Democratic president.

During the confirmation hearings, Sotomayor declined to engage the committee members over most of the difficult legal issues of the day, including property rights and the reach of the Second Amendment, and even repudiated Obama’s assertions that a good judge should have some “empathy” with parties that appear before the court.

Sotomayor grew up in a housing project in the Bronx before going on to Princeton University and Yale Law School and then to posts on the federal bench.

(via The New York Times)