Legal Beat

Last week, Sotomayor provided the Judiciary Committee with a handful of additional memos and other documents from the organization during her tenure. Sessions and Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, subsequently wrote to LatinoJustice PRLDEF requesting additional documentation regarding Sotomayor's work there.

"We don't have enough information, unfortunately, to assess these concerns effectively.," said Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sessions noted that the group had come to the defense of a group of Puerto Rican nationalists after then-New York Mayor David Dinkins referred to them as "assassins" in 1990

The tone of Sessions' comments contrasted with his floor remarks last week, the first in a planned series of high-minded speeches addressing the proper role of judges.

Leahy said Republicans were trying to "mischaracterize her involvement with respectable, mainstream civil rights organizations."

Founded in 1972, PRLDEF was modeled on the NAACP and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and has been involved in lawsuits regarding bilingual education, employment discrimination, school desegregation, and voting rights.

Separately, a group of Latino lawyers and law enforcement officials joined Robert Menendez, D-N.J., to defend Sotomayor's criminal law record.

Art Acevedo, national president of the National Latino Peace Officers Association and chief of police in Austin, Texas, said Sotomayor is "fair and impartial."