July 15 (Bloomberg) -- Judge Sonia Sotomayor said President Barack Obama didn’t ask her about abortion before her U.S. Supreme Court nomination, as she renewed her promise to lawmakers that she would interpret the law impartially.

“I was asked no questions by anyone including the president about my views on any specific legal issue,” she said in response to Republican questioning in her second full day of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sotomayor’s audience today included New Haven, Connecticut, firefighters whose race-bias lawsuit is a central issue in her confirmation debate. Sotomayor was part of a three-judge panel that said the city was justified in canceling planned promotions because no blacks scored well enough in testing to qualify. The Supreme Court reversed that ruling, deciding in favor of white firefighters who said they were unlawfully denied promotions.

Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn, a former judge, pressed Sotomayor on the three-judge panel’s use of a so-called summary order to resolve the case. The order adopted the legal reasoning of a federal trial judge, adding only a few sentences of additional analysis.

Cornyn said he was “shocked” that the three-judge panel treated the case in such a cursory fashion.

Summary Rulings

Sotomayor said the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals resolves about 75 percent of its cases by summary order.

“Not every case requires a long opinion if a district court opinion has been clear and thorough on an issue,” she said.

The Senate panel finished for the evening and is on schedule to conclude questioning Sotomayor tomorrow, her fourth day on the witness stand. Other witnesses, including a New Haven, Connecticut, firefighter and former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Louis Freeh, are due to testify later.

Sotomayor said she couldn’t explain a Washington Post story that said the White House had reassured interest groups that she supported the constitutional right to abortion.

“You just have to look at my record to know that, in the cases that I addressed on all issues, I follow the law,” Sotomayor said.

Sotomayor continued her effort to dispel Republican suggestions she would use her seat on the Supreme Court to pursue her own agenda.

Sticking to the Law

“We can’t change the law,” she said. “We are not lawmakers.”

The panel’s top Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, told reporters during a break in the hearing that Sotomayor’s efforts to explain statements she made in speeches have been “muddled” and that she has “backtracked on issue after issue.”

“I’m disappointed about the lack of clarity and consistency,” he said.

Sotomayor said today that some have misinterpreted her comments that a “wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences” would make better decisions “than a white male who hasn’t live that life.”

“I understand that some people have understood them in a way that I never intended,” she said. Sotomayor said her background would inform her work as a judge, not determine the outcome of cases.

Sotomayor also said judges don’t make decisions based on the law in foreign countries, regardless of how her public comments on that subject may have been interpreted.

Store of Knowledge

Judges “build up a store of knowledge about legal thinking, about approaches that one might consider,” she said. They don’t cite foreign law “to drive the conclusion” of cases. “They’re not using it in the sense of compelling a result.”

Sotomayor told the committee her career was influenced by an episode of the Perry Mason television series in which the prosecutor emphasized his job was to do justice and not necessarily convict defendants. She also told the panel she remembered the fictitious attorney losing only one case.

In a lighter moment, Sotomayor was unable to answer a question from Democratic Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, also a Perry Mason fan, who asked if she remembered the case the TV lawyer lost.

“Didn’t the White House prepare you for that?” Franken said.

The White House later issued a statement saying the episode in question was “The Case of the Deadly Verdict” which aired on Oct. 17, 1963.

Abortion Questions

Sotomayor wouldn’t answer a hypothetical question about abortion from Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma. Coburn asked whether it would be legal to end a full-term pregnancy if doctors discovered the baby had spina bifida.

“I can’t answer that question in the abstract because I would have to look at what the state of the state’s law was on that question,” Sotomayor said.

She also declined to take a position on possible congressional regulation of financial markets. The question was posed by Senator Ted Kaufman, a Delaware Democrat, who praised Sotomayor’s experience representing corporations before she became a judge.

“You’ve just raised the very first question that will come up when Congress passes an act” in response to the nation’s financial crisis, Sotomayor said. “I can’t answer that question.”

Sotomayor, 55, would be the first Hispanic and third woman ever to sit on the nation’s highest court. She would succeed retired Justice David Souter.

To contact the reporters on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net; Christopher Stern in Washington at cstern3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 15, 2009 18:14 EDT