President Barack Obama's Supreme Court pick Sonia Sotomayor tonight looked headed for confirmation as Senate hearings wound up, but critics planned one last showdown over a controversial race ruling.
Ms Sotomayor, poised to become the first Hispanic justice on the top US court, appeared for a fourth day before the Senate Judiciary Committee where she has coolly parried Republican attempts to depict her as unfit for the lifetime job.
The committee's Democratic chairman Senator Patrick Leahy said there was little doubt she would be approved in a vote expected by early August in the Democratic-controlled Senate and take her seat when the nine-member court hears its next case in September.
"She will be on the Supreme Court when they come in," Mr Leahy said on PBS after Wednesday's session.
Critics have focused on the 55-year-old appeals court judge's attitudes toward race, with Republicans hammering at Ms Sotomayor for comments in which she said a "wise Latina' might be a better judge than a white man.
Today, as the issue came up again, she said she was sorry for the controversy. "I regret that I have offended some of you ...I believe my life demonstrates that that was not my intent."
Ms Sotomayor has also come under fire for upholding a lower court ruling which permitted the city of New Haven, Connecticut to junk firefighter exam results which did not produce enough qualified minority candidates.
White firefighters who scored well on the test complained they were being discriminated against, and the Supreme Court later overturned Ms Sotomayor's ruling, saying it could open the door to new types of racial quota systems.
"It's an important decision and it can have far reaching implications," Republican senator John Kyl said today, opening the day's questions.
One of the chief plaintiffs in that case, Frank Ricci, was expected to testify as a witness later on Thursday, a moment of drama in the proceedings.
"Mr. Ricci has a story to tell too, there are all kinds of stories to tell in this country," Republican senator Lindsey Graham told Ms Sotomayor today.
Ms Sotomayor has followed precedent by declining to describe her personal positions on divisive issues - including abortion, gun rights, gay marriage - saying these might come before her on the court.
Despite the tough questioning, Democrats and Republicans say it is almost certain that Ms Sotomayor will be confirmed on the court, where she will replace retired Justice David Souter as one of four liberals facing five conservative justices.
Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican member of the committee, conceded that Democrats who control the Senate could approve her even without any Republican votes. "I think numerically you can't say but that she's got a good chance of being approved," he told PBS.
But he said the sparring over Ms Sotomayor's appointment, which has divided along sharply partisan lines despite Mr Obama's hopes of building bipartisan bridges, was a sign of future battles to come over the role of the judicial branch of the US government.
"Republicans on one side, Democrats on the other, seem to be asking different questions," Mr Grassley said. "In the last 10 years, there's been a change in the environment here that is influencing that."
Mr Graham, a South Carolina Republican who earlier said he was not sure how he would vote on Md Sotomayor, said today that the Bronx, New York-born judge had persuaded him she would not seek to promote narrow racial or ethnic goals as an "activist" on the top court.
"An activist would be a judge who would be chomping at the bit to use this wonderful opportunity to change America through the Supreme Court," Mr Graham said.
"I think and believe you are broad minded enough to understand that America is bigger than the Bronx, bigger than South Carolina," he said, although he added "you have said some things that just bug the hell out of me".
Reuters