Sotomayor Answers the Senate

*Sonia Sotomayor is worth more than $700,000, but has $15,000 in credit card debt.

*She was contacted by the White House four days before David Souter announced his retirement.

*She's on the very elite Princeton's Board of Trustees and literally has too many awards and honors to count.

These are just a few of the details about Judge Sotomayor to be mined from the Judiciary Committee's questionnaire, signed, sealed and delivered by White House lawyers earlier today. The core document is 173 pages, with several appendixes. It includes Sotomayor's awards, associations, events attended, and a comprehensive look into her legal background, including her description of the most significant cases she's participated in, including the resolution of the Major League Baseball strike.

As expected, the document also sheds light on the White House's selection process. Sotomayor says she was first contacted by White House counsel Greg Craig four days before Justice David Souter announced his retirement. Over the next three weeks, she was interviewed in person or on the phone by more than a dozen people, including Vice President Joe Biden, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and ultimately President Obama, whom she had never met before.

Finally, we learn about Sotomayor's net worth, which she estimates at just over $740,000, including about $30,000 in cash, more than $1 million in real estate (who knows what that looks like in New York City), with a $381,000 outstanding mortgage, $15,000 in credit card bills and a $15,000 dental bill. She has never declared bankruptcy.

Loads of reporting will follow on the cases contained in the questionnaire, but the bird's eye view is there for you to see.

Next steps...more meetings with senators this week and the next, FBI background check, murder boards to prep for hearings, and likely in July, the main event.