Conservative activists plan to press Senate Republicans to delay a floor vote on Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court until after the August recess.

The Third Branch Conference will send a letter to senators Friday asking that debate on Sotomayor's nomination be postponed until September, said the group's leader, Manuel Miranda.

"It would be a failure of leadership to allow a confirmation vote before the August recess," Miranda said Thursday.

Sen. Sam Brownback became at least the third Republican to announce he will vote against Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court.

"Judge Sotomayor has indicated through past rulings and in her writings that she believes the judiciary should take an activist role and make laws, instead of upholding the law," he said in a speech Wednesday on the Senate floor. "As Chief Justice [John G.] Roberts said, a justice should be an impartial umpire, not a player in the game. I am afraid Judge Sotomayor wants to be more of a player than an umpire."

Brownback, who is not running for a third term and is preparing to run for governor back home in Kansas, was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee until this year.

A Latino advocacy group in which Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor served isn't sympathetic to terrorists, the organization's president said Wednesday.

"We are an organization of lawyers who believe in the rule of law," Cesar A. Perales, president and general counsel of LatinoJustice PRLDEF told CQ. "We do not support terrorism. We never supported terrorism and it is almost a joke to suggest an organization like it with its history and membership ever supported terrorism."

On Tuesday, Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., raised concerns about Sotomayor's "long association" with the organization. Sotomayor was a member and president of the board of directors for what was then known as the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund between 1980 and 1992.

Senate Republicans turned up the heat Tuesday on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, raising concerns about her work for a Latino advocacy group.

Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said Sotomayor has done "extensive work" for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, an organization he said is "clearly outside the mainstream of [the] American approach to matters" and "has taken some very shocking positions with respect to terrorism."

Sotomayor worked with the public interest legal organization, now known as LatinoJustice PRLDEF, between 1980 and 1992, serving as a member and president of its board of directors.

Four days after defending her membership in the Belizean Grove, a private women's organization, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor informed the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday that she has quit the group.

"I believe that the Belizean Grove does not practice invidious discrimination and my membership did not violate the Judicial Code of Ethics, but I do not want questions about this to distract anyone from my qualifications and record," Sotomayor wrote in a letter to Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt. and Ranking Republican Jeff Sessions of Alabama.

Sotomayor has come under criticism for the explanation of her membership she offered the committee earlier in the week.

"The organization does not invidiously discriminate on the basis of sex," Sotomayor wrote in her June 15 letter. "Men are involved in its activities -- they participate in trips, host events, and speak at functions -- but to the best of my knowledge, a man has never asked to be considered for membership."

Mel Martinez, R-Fla., sure sounded fond of Sonia Sotomayor after emerging from a private meeting with the Supreme Court nominee Tuesday.

"I think she's going to be a brilliant jurist on the Supreme Court," said Martinez, who is retiring at the end of next year and is one of two Hispanic senators (The other is Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey.)

Martinez, who spoke with Sotomayor in Spanish at a photo opportunity at the start of their meeting, indicated he would "withhold my ultimate determination" until after the Senate Judiciary hearings.

Nevertheless, Martinez felt comfortable predicting, "I would expect she would be confirmed with good numbers."

Patrick J. Leahy may have squandered whatever goodwill he'd developed with Jeff Sessions, the new top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee with the way he went about announcing the start date for Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing.

Sessions told CQ's Bart Jansen that Leahy took to the floor to announce the hearing will begin July 13 without first speaking with him.

Sessions said Leahy left a message at Sessions' office while he was attending a military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. When Sessions called back, he missed Leahy.

So instead of learning the date first-hand, Sessions said he learned it from media reports.

A broken ankle didn't prevent Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor from starting her visits with senators on time on Monday.

Our CQ colleague Bart Jansen reports that Sotomayor arrived at the office of Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, for her first meeting of the day sporting crutches and a cast from her knee down on her right leg, though still managed to have a high heel shoe on her left foot.

Sotomayor fell and broke a small bone in her ankle Monday morning at La Guardia Airport in New York on her way back to Washington, said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. But she isn't letting the injury interfere with her break-neck schedule of meetings on Capitol Hill.

In addition to Grassley, Sotomayor is scheduled to meet with five other senators on Monday: Max Baucus, D-Mont., Kay Hagan, D-N.C., Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., David Vitter, R-La., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor delivered multiple speeches between 1994 and 2003 in which she suggested "a wise Latina woman" or "wise woman" judge might "reach a better conclusion" than a male judge.

Those speeches, released Thursday as part of Sotomayor's responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questionnaire, (to see Sotomayor's responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee click here and here) suggest her widely quoted 2001 speech in which she indicated a "wise Latina" judge might make a better decision was far from a single isolated instance.

A draft version of a October 2003 speech Sotomayor delivered at Seton Hall University stated, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion." That is identical to her October 2001 remarks at the University of California, Berkeley that have become the subject of intense criticism by Republican senators and prompted conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh to label her "racist."

President Obama's first two judicial nominees were approved Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The committee voted 12 to 7 for David Hamilton, a nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit along strict party lines.

Andre Davis, a nominee for the 4th Circuit, was approved 16 to 3, picking up support from four Republicans: Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, Jon Kyl of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas.

Patrick J. Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said again Tuesday that conservative attacks on Sonia Sotomayor "makes it imperative" to schedule her confirmation hearing as soon as possible.

Leahy, D-Vt., made a similar point when he appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" on May 31 and it appears that's the argument he will use should he decide to schedule a hearing earlier than Republicans would like.

Leahy said he will meet Wednesday with Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the committee's top Republican, to talk about timing.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will have a busy Tuesday on Capitol Hill as she is scheduled to meet with 10 senators.

Sotomayor will begin her courtesy calls with private one-on-one meetings with the top two Senate leaders in each party: Majority Leader Harry Reid, Whip Richard Durbin, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Whip Jon Kyl.

On the Judiciary Committee, she'll meet with chairman Patrick J. Leahy, top Republican Jeff Sessions as well as Orrin G. Hatch and Dianne Feinstein.

In between meetings, Charles E. Schumer, the nominee's home state senator, who has been designated by the White House to help escort her during meetings, will host Sotomayor for lunch along with New York's junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand.

Conservative activists on Monday called on Senate Republicans to mobilize for a "great debate" on Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court and reserve the possibility of a filibuster.

"We request that you will lead 40 or more Senators to participate in a great debate that highlights all the issues that come to the fore with a Supreme Court nomination," says the letter signed by 121 conservative activists and addressed at the Senate GOP's leadership. "We urge that you mobilize all Republican Members and staffs, and create opportunity for comment and debate, in and out of the Judiciary Committee, on and off the Senate floor, and in and out of Washington, from this moment until the final floor vote."

The letter asks Senate Republicans to reserve the right to filibuster the nomination "so that the debate on the Senate floor is appropriately long and, therefore, suitably catalyzed to the American people."