All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Like Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, the High Court itself had humble beginnings in New York City.

It was the nation's capital when Chief Justice John Jay convened the first session in 1790.

While the Constitution created the Court, it left the organizational details to Congress.

The Court first exercised the power to declare a law unconstitutional in 1803 in Marbury versus Madison.

While the Senate has the power to confirm or reject Supreme Court nominees, it didn't hold the first hearing until 1916, when Woodrow Wilson nominated Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish justice. And while some nominees testified at their hearings, that wasn't the norm until 1955.

The Court is constant but it is not static. It evolves and continues to bring those "firsts" that indicate - as one law professor so eloquently stated - even "if it's not in touch with the weather of the day, it's in touch with the climate of the age."

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

How will a Latina woman from the Bronx interpret the words of a bunch of old white guys called the Founding Fathers?

That's the Cliffs Notes version of the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

For Democrats like Senator Patrick Leahy, hers is a success story, "for which we all can take pride."

Some Republicans meanwhile are questioning if that pride leads to prejudice. This week several of them will cite this quote: "A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life and those life experiences."

Was that empathy or was it politics?

Her confirmation is nearly foolproof given the Democrats' control of the Senate, but it will be very interesting to hear how she answers the questions and how the conversation moves from her quintessentially American story to how she'll apply the rule of law for all Americans.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.