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Calls grow for Supreme Court’s Sotomayor to retire to avoid RBG repeat
Insights from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, NBC News, and the Financial Times
The News
A growing number of liberal commentators are urging Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor to retire, citing her age, health, and concerns that if former President Donald Trump wins again, he could push the court even further to the right.
Liberals fear a repeat of the situation whereby long-serving justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ignored calls to resign, then died in the final months of Trump’s presidency. Trump then appointed conservative Amy Coney Barrett to the court, which moved in 2022 to overturn the landmark abortion ruling Roe v. Wade.
If Sotomayor steps down from the bench now, Democrats hope President Joe Biden could nominate her replacement and get the new justice confirmed before the 2024 presidential election.
But if she remains on the court and Biden isn’t reelected, the likelihood of Trump getting to choose another Supreme Court justice — his fourth selection, a record for modern times — increases.
While the Left is worried, these circumstances are different from Ginsburg’s — Sotomayor will be 70 in June and has Type 1 diabetes, whereas Ginsburg died aged 87 of pancreatic cancer.
SIGNALS
Sotomayor’s Hispanic supporters push back
A leading Democratic organization of Hispanic and Latino members of Congress pushed back on calls for the retirement of the court’s first Hispanic justice, saying they “look forward to her continued service on the Court.” Individual members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus also issued statements of support, with Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, D-N.M, saying Sotomayor’s decision should be made “without the interference of politicians who have no idea about her health condition” and Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., saying she has “every right to serve” until she decides to retire. Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin told HuffPost that he too disagreed with calls for her to step down.
Top Democrat lawmakers warn of an RBG repeat
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who also sits on the judiciary committee, hasn’t called for Sotomayor’s resignation, but has made pointed allusions to Ginsburg’s decision to stay on until her death. “We should learn a lesson,” he told NBC News last week. “And it’s not like there’s any mystery here about what the lesson should be.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse told NBC he was “not joining any calls” for Sotomayor to retire — but warned that if the high court was split 7-2, “you go from a captured court to a full MAGA court.” He added: “Certainly I think if Justice Ginsburg had it to do over again, she might have rethought her confidence in her own health.”
Anxiety over Biden’s odds strengthens calls for retirement
The calls for Sotomayor to step down are also “symptomatic of the anxiety among Democrats around Biden’s odds in the general election,” the Financial Times reported. Biden and Trump are polling neck-and-neck in several key states, and even if Biden wins reelection, he might not be able to install a new liberal justice if Democrats lose control of the Senate.
But some see using the election to pressure Sotomayor to step down as misguided, believing Democrats should stay focused on the prize: winning elections. “There is a foolproof way to ensure that Sotomayor’s replacement will share her ideological leanings,” The New Republic’s Matt Ford wrote: “Liberals could simply persuade the American people to elect Democrats to the White House and the Senate.”
