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Washington » Sen. Orrin Hatch's homework sits on his desk in a neatly organized black binder. The 4-inch thick manual is devoted to just one subject: Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
The tabs number one to 31 and include a slew of decision summaries, opinions, law review articles and even newspaper clippings.
But these materials will just be one factor influencing Hatch as he prepares for Sotomayor's confirmation hearing and his ultimate decision on whether to back the nominee for the Supreme Court or, for the first time, vote no.
In his 32 years in office, the Utah Republican has been through 11 confirmation hearings for the high court and he's always voted in favor.
"I come at this wanting to vote for her," Hatch said during an interview last week.
But before he casts his ballot, Hatch says there's much reading and researching to do -- a tried-and-true process that he's relied on for decades on the Judiciary Committee.
Staffers -- including his Judiciary counsel -- are scouring thousands of decisions and opinions Sotomayor has made, joined or written in her 17 years on the bench. Summaries and key points go into the binder.
Hatch says he also relies on outside perspectives, such as those of the conservative Federalist Society and of constitutional experts, like 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Michael McConnell, of Utah, and former Clinton special prosecutor
Hatch reads magazine stories, studies the nominee's submitted documents and even relies on his nighttime reading, currently a book by Yale author Akhil Reed Amar on how the Constitution was formed and another by University of Texas scholar Lucas Powe on how the high court's decisions suited the politicians' wishes at the time.
What's he looking for?
"When you have a Supreme Court nominee or any nominee, you're interested in integrity, you're interested in ability, capacity, you're interested in prior experience and temperament," Hatch says. "There may be other attributes but you're mainly interested in their approach to the law. All of those things are important."
Some senators are already lining up behind or against Sotomayor. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., announced his vote against her is a "forgone conclusion," while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, has endorsed her and is trying to speedily get her through confirmation.
Hatch says he's waiting, and his decision could set a tone for others. On the Republican side, Hatch is the man for Supreme Court matters.
"He's probably one of the most experienced and knowledgeable members on our side," Sen. John Cornyn, of Texas, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said in an interview. "So yeah, he's sort of like one of the gray beards on our side on the judicial confirmation issues."
Sen. Jeff Sessions, ranking Republican member on the committee, praised Hatch as a "constitutional scholar."
"I know whatever he says on these subjects is something the American people need to listen to because he loves this country, he loves our Constitution, and he understands it," Sessions said.
Hatch's vetting of nominees has, at times, been off, he admits, noting his support for Justice David Souter, whom Sotomayor would replace if confirmed. President George H.W. Bush nominated Souter, who was presented as a conservative.
"I knew he wasn't [a conservative]," Hatch says, "but I also thought he'd be more moderate than he turned out to be."
Hatch says the confirmation hearings are key to finding out what a nominee really believes, and he plans to grill Sotomayor on her comments, repeated in more than a half dozen speeches, that a wise Latina woman would make a better decision than a white male. But Hatch says he believes she can clear that up if she gives a straight answer.
"It's apparent that a Democrat[ic] president is going to nominate someone who will be quite a bit different than the person a Republican president would nominate," Hatch says.
Therefore, he wants to make sure that even if the prospective justice's decisions aren't the ones he would make, they fall within mainstream jurisprudence.
"Whoever is president not only has the right to nominate but really has a right to be respected in that nomination unless there's otherwise some very important reason for voting against a nominee," Hatch says.
So far, he hasn't decided whether that reason exists with Sotomayor.
