Liberal Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 70, is not planning to step down from the bench to allow President Joe Biden to replace her with someone younger, sources close to her have said.
Left-wing pundits have begun calling for Sotomayor, who was nominated to the Supreme Court in 2009 by then-President Barack Obama, to resign since former President Donald Trump was reelected last week.
“This would probably be a good day for Sotomayor to retire,” David Dayen, executive editor of progressive magazine American Prospect, posted the day after the race was called for Trump:
This would probably be a good day for Sotomayor to retire
— David Dayen (@ddayen) November 6, 2024
MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan reposted an April op-ed he wrote for the Guardian, saying Sotomayor should resign “for the sake of all of us”:
“For the sake of all of us, Sonia Sotomayor needs to retire from the US Supreme Court”
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) November 10, 2024
Sadly this piece of mine from April (!) has aged pretty well, actually. 🤷🏽♂️👇🏽https://t.co/50YinLa82p
“Sadly this piece of mine from April (!) has aged pretty well, actually,” he captioned his X post.
CNN’s Bakari Sellers went so far as to suggest replacing Sotomayor with losing candidate Vice President Kamala Harris:
Bakari Sellers on CNN says he wants Joe Biden to nominate Kamala Harris to SCOTUS, a woman the country just rejected. He says he wants to make Republicans go "crazy" and stir up "chaos."
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) November 8, 2024
Not gonna happen. These people are just bitter. But remember this moment. pic.twitter.com/H3ntOTtSb4
“You have a hell of a vice president right there who has a legal pedigree to sit on a Supreme Court,” Sellers remarked during a Friday morning appearance on the network, adding that he wants to make Republicans “go crazy.”
Despite the widespread calls for her resignation, a source close to Sotomayor told the Wall Street Journal over the weekend that “this is no time to lose her important voice on the court.”
“She just turned 70 and takes better care of herself than anyone I know,” the source claimed.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) also told NBC’s Kristen Welker that Sotomayor should not step down, though he acknowledged that he has heard a “little bit” of talk about the subject:
Bernie Sanders is asked if 70 year old Sonia Sotomayor should step down so Biden can appoint a younger person to the Supreme Court.
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) November 10, 2024
His answer is simple.pic.twitter.com/4iSRj81f3q
“Justices don’t take well to being pressured to give up their lifetime appointments,” Breitbart News senior legal contributor Ken Klukowski observed.
“It’s hilarious that leftists are suggesting Kamala Harris should replace Sotomayor on the Supreme Court,” Klukowski continued. “‘Wow, Harris is a legal genius!’ is something nobody said ever.”
