- Some progressives want Sonia Sotomayor to consider retiring from the Supreme Court.
- They argue that it’s important to avoid a repeat of what happened with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
- But so far, not one elected Democrat in Congress — including progressives — has joined those calls.
In recent weeks, progressive figures have grown louder in calling for Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor to consider resigning from the Supreme Court.
Those calls, however, have yet to echo within the halls of Congress — even among lawmakers one might expect to jump on board.
“I don’t think you can tell the first Latina Supreme Court Justice, who’s still in her 60s, when to retire,” said Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California. “Some members of Congress are in their 70s and 80s.”
Not even members of the progressive “Squad” are on board with the idea.
“I’m not in favor of telling people when they should retire,” said Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. “I just think it’s a waste of energy and time to have these silly debates.”
“I haven’t really delved into that conversation much,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. “So I don’t really have much of a comment on it at the moment.”
Generally, those who want Sotomayor to step down have argued that the 69-year-old justice’s health could falter in the coming years, owing to her type 1 diabetes diagnosis and a Huffington Post report that she has traveled with a medic.
Given the possibility of former President Donald Trump winning in November — or of Republicans retaking the Senate and refusing to confirm another Democratic nominee — the “Retire Sotomayor” crowd is aiming to safeguard against the possibility of 7-2 conservative court.
Hanging over the discussion is the late Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in 2020 just months before the end of the Trump administration. Years earlier, Ginsburg had resisted calls to retire during the Obama administration. She was swiftly replaced by conservative Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, which laid the groundwork for decisions like the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
Yet there’s little indication that Sotomayor isn’t healthy enough to serve, and the arguments in favor of her retirement are built on a fair degree of speculation about her condition.
For now, calls for Sotomayor’s retirement remain limited to some prominent progressives and media figures. Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal has gone the furthest of anyone, telling NBC News recently that Sotomayor “has to weigh the competing factors” and that Democrats “should learn a lesson” from Ginsburg.
In recent days, several other Democratic senators have told reporters that they oppose calls for the justice to retire. But while it’s the Senate that deals with the confirmation of justices, the lower chamber also has some say over the court, too: the House could theoretically move to impeach a justice, if it came to that.
“Taking into account what happened to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I get it,” said Rep. Jimmy Gomez of California. But the progressive Democrat said that people need to “chill out” about Sotomayor, noting that he was recently at an event with the 94-year-old civil rights activist Dolores Huerta, and that she seemed healthy.
Ironically, Gomez also pointed to Ginsburg — who survived several bouts of cancer and died at age 87 — to support his defense of Sotomayor.
“I’m not concerned,” said Gomez. “How many health issues did Ruth Bader Ginsburg have? And she kept on trucking for years.”
“I think it’s an overreaction to a recent experience on the court with Justice Ginsburg,” said Rep. Chuy Garcia, a progressive Democrat from Illinois, saying that Sotomayor is an “extraordinary Justice” whose “lived experience is very insightful to the court.”
Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota — who waged an entire Democratic presidential primary campaign based on the premise that Joe Biden is too old — said Sotomayor’s situation is a “very different context” than Biden’s.
But Phillips said that if it became clear that Sotomayor was gravely ill, he would have a different opinion.
“Then it becomes an issue of great acute consequence,” said Phillips. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg was ill. We knew she had cancer. We knew she was old.”
