Tales from the Trail

Today seems a bit like a repeat of yesterday, just with a bit of a twist.

On the healthcare front, action moves to the Senate side with the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee due to finish work on and present its version of the healthcare bill . The Senate Finance Committee is still hammering out details on how to pay for a massive healthcare overhaul and holds a closed door meeting before it presents its version of the bill next week.

President Barack Obama will increase his pressure on lawmakers to reach agreement with a Rose Garden address at 1:05 pm EDT/1705 GMT on the need for health care reform. Obama, who has made the healthcare overhaul his top legislative priority, on Tuesday voiced support for a House of Representatives proposal that would pay for the reform by levying a new tax on the wealthy.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor heads back to face the Senate Judiciary Committee at 9:30 EDT/1330 GMT for the second day of questioning in her nomination hearing.

Republicans will likely keep grilling her on issues they see as signs of her “activist” tendancies. In a series of calm and measured responses on Tuesday,  Sotomayor promised to rule on law, not racial bias and explained some controversial comments made in the past.

The Democratic majority in the Senate means Sotomayor’s lifetime appointment on the high court is all but assured. But Republicans are seizing the moment to question Obama’s first nominee, who could influence the direction of the Supreme Court.

Senators trying to make points turned to baseball umpires, football, and matters of the heart, at Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing for the U.S. Supreme Court.

They batted around the words of Chief Justice John Roberts from his own confirmation hearing four years ago when he told the same committee: “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them.” (For more umpire analogy discussion see The New York Times).

Democrats sought to portray Sotomayor as a better court umpire than Roberts, who was a nominee of  Republican President George W. Bush.