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This is the text of Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s remarks as prepared for delivery on the first day of the Supreme Court nomination hearing for Judge Sonia Sotomayor:

Welcome, Judge Sotomayor.

It’s a pleasure to see you again today, and I enjoyed the meeting we had in my office a few weeks ago.  We had a good conversation – although you did confess to me that when you once visited Minnesota in June, you felt the need to bring a winter parka.  I’ll try not to hold that against you this week!

I know you have lots of family and friends with you today, supporting you during this important hearing, and we welcome them too.   In particular, it’s been an honor for me to see your mom here.

When President Obama first announced your nomination, I loved the story about how your mom had saved up money to buy you and your brother the only set of encyclopedias in the neighborhood.  It reminded me of when my parents bought a set of Encyclopedia Britannicas in the seventies that always occupied a hallowed place in our hallway.  For me, those encyclopedias were a window on the world and a gateway to learning, as they clearly were for you.

From the time you were nine years old, your mom raised you and your brother on her own.  She struggled to buy those encyclopedias on her nurse’s salary, but she did it because she believed deeply in the value of education.

You went on to be the valedictorian of your high school class, to graduate at the top of your class in college and to attend law school.

After that – and this is an experience we have in common – you became a local prosecutor.  Most of my questions during this hearing will be about opinions you’ve authored and work you’ve done in the criminal area.  I believe having judges with real world, frontline experience as a prosecutor is a good thing.

When I think about the inspiring journey of your life, I’m reminded of other Supreme Court Justices who came from – and I’ll use your own words here, Judge – “very modest and challenging circumstances.”

I think about Justice O’Connor, who lived the first years of her life on a ranch in rural Arizona with no running water, no indoor plumbing, and no electricity.  By sheer necessity, she learned to mend fences, ride horses, brand cattle, fire a rifle and drive a truck before she turned thirteen.

I also think about Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was the great-grandson of a slave.

His mother was a teacher; while his father worked as a Pullman car waiter before becoming a steward at an all-white country club.

Justice Marshall waited tables to help put himself through college, and his mother had to pawn her wedding and engagement rings to pay his entrance fees at Howard University Law School here in Washington.

And then there’s Justice Blackmun, who grew up in a St. Paul working-class neighborhood in my home state of Minnesota.

He was able to attend Harvard College only because he received a scholarship at the last minute from the Harvard Club of Minnesota.  Once there, he worked as a tutor and as a janitor to help pay expenses.

Through four years of college and three years of law school, his family never had enough money to bring him home to Minnesota for Christmas.

Each of these very different Justices grew up with their own, very different “challenging circumstances.”

No one can doubt that, for each one of these Justices, their life experiences shaped the work they did on the Supreme Court.