Sonia Sotomayor will be sworn in Saturday as the 111th justice of the US Supreme Court after she won confirmation from the Senate Thursday to be the court’s first Hispanic justice and its third woman.

Sotomayor watched the vote on television at a federal courthouse in New York.

The Senate vote broke “another barrier and moving us yet another step closer to a more perfect union,” said President Barack Obama in reaction to the confirmation. He plans to meet with Sotomayor at the White House next week.

As expected, Democrats voted unanimously for her, while most Republicans opposed the confirmation. The final tally was 68-31.

Senators took the rare step of assembling at their desks for the vote, rising from their seats to call out “aye” or “nay.” The longest-serving senator, 91-year-old Robert Byrd of West Virginia, was brought in on a wheelchair to vote in Sotomayor’s favor. Edward Kennedy, suffering from brain cancer, was the only senator absent.

(via News 13)