The U.S. Senate has voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. (George Bridges/Pool/Associated Press)

The U.S. Senate has voted to approve the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, who will become the first Hispanic justice to sit on the Supreme Court.

The vote was 68-31 for Sotomayor, with unanimous Democratic support. Most Republican senators voted against her but nine joined their Democratic colleagues.

She will be sworn in on Saturday.

Sotomayor, U.S. President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee, will replace retiring Justice David Souter, considered a liberal, meaning her choice is not expected to change the high court's ideological split. She will also become the third woman on the court.

Sotomayor, 55, is the daughter of Puerto Rican parents, and was raised in a New York City housing project and educated in elite Ivy League universities. She has served on the federal bench for 17 years.

'In the judge's heart'

Many Republicans opposed her nomination, saying she will bring a liberal bias and judicial activism to the court, pointing to comments and judicial decisions she made in the past.

Critics focused on a controversial remark in a 2001 speech in which she suggested a "wise Latina" would usually reach better conclusions than a white man without similar experiences.

She told a judicial committee that she used those words in an effort to inspire groups of young Hispanics to believe that "they could become anything they wanted to become."

She was also criticized over a ruling she and two other judges made against white New Haven, Conn., firefighters who alleged reverse discrimination after being denied promotions. Sotomayor told the hearings that her decision was based on precedent.

Apply law, not make it

Some critics argued that she places personal feelings ahead of the legal statutes when deciding cases.

But during her confirmation hearings, she insisted that a judge's role is to apply the law and not make it. She also said she disagreed with Obama over his so-called "empathy" requirement — that in some decisions, a critical ingredient in a judge's decision "is supplied by what is in the judge's heart."

"I wouldn't approach the issue of judging the way the president does," she told the hearings.

Republicans also point to Sotomayor's stance on gun rights as a key reason they would vote against her.

They complain she refused to weigh in during her confirmation hearings on whether the constitution's Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms applies to states as well as the federal government.

With files from The Associated Press