Dem Senator Turns Up the Heat On Justice Sotomayor to Retire: ‘Graveyards Are Full of Indispensable People’
A Democratic senator is turning up the heat on Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to step down while Democrats can select her replacement.
Speaking with NBC’s Sahil Kapur for a story published Wednesday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) made a veiled reference to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — who ignored calls to step down for years during former President Barack Obama’s tenure. She passed away in 2020, with former President Donald Trump choosing her successor.
“I’m very respectful of Justice Sotomayor,” Blumenthal told NBC. “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 this body included.”
The idea of the 69-year-old Sotomayor stepping down has gained momentum in recent days. Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan made the argument for the justice to retire in a recent column for The Guardian.
“Wouldn’t a replacement for Sotomayor that Senator Joe Manchin has to approve be less progressive, and more centrist, than our sole Latina, super-progressive justice?” Hasan wrote. “Perhaps. But, again, consider the alternative. Would we rather Biden replace Sotomayor with a centrist in 2024 … or Trump replace her with a far-right Federalist Society goon in 2025?”
Apart from Blumenthal, other Democrats have not yet publicly floated the idea that Sotomayor should retire. But according to one unnamed Democrat who has worked on judicial nomination, just because they’re not saying it, doesn’t mean they’re not thinking it.
“All the people in the liberal legal community are putting hurting Sonia’s feelings ahead of the prospect of a 7-2 court. Insane,” the Democrat told NBC. “So they don’t say anything about her retiring when they all think she should.”
Watch above, via MSNBC.
