Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the oldest Democratic-appointed Supreme Court justice, has received calls from several left-liberal activists to step down from the Supreme Court so she doesn’t die in office.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) made some of the strongest comments approaching saying what has been rumored as a push to force Sotomayor out of her chambers to give President Joe Biden an opportunity to appoint another Supreme Court justice. In an interview with NBC News, he cautioned her to “weigh the competing factors.”
“I’m very respectful of Justice Sotomayor,” Blumenthal said. “I have great admiration for her. But I think she really has to weigh the competing factors. We should learn a lesson. And it’s not like there’s any mystery here about what the lesson should be. The old saying — graveyards are full of indispensable people, ourselves in [the Senate] included.”
Activists have pointed to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s death in September 2020, which led to then-President Donald Trump replacing her with Justice Amy Coney Barrett and shifting the court to a 6-3 conservative majority, as something they want to avoid seeing happen again.
He also said the justices should consider the larger interests of the court, but he emphasized that Sotomayor is “highly accomplished” and a “fully functioning justice right now.”
