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Sen. Grassley Pledges Open Mind On Sotomayor

GOP Sen. Charles Grassley, who voted against Sonia Sotomayor in 1998 when she was nominated to the court of appeals, says he will wait for hearings into her nomination to be a Supreme Court justice before deciding how he will vote.

"I would say that I owe her, I owe the president and I owe the American people a chance for her to state her views of the law and of the Constitution, and to make a decision as I would in several other nominees for the court," Grassley tells NPR's Melissa Block.

While nominating Sotomayor, President Obama cited her years of experience on the bench.

"I can say that I am glad that he has appointed somebody with that sort of experience because it gives us, as senators, an opportunity to review the record," says Grassley, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "She's more of an open book."

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