Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has made clear she has no plans to step down, according to people close to her, despite calls from some on the left that President Joe Biden should try to name a successor before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
“She’s in great health, and the court needs her now more than ever,” said one person close to the justice.
Some progressives have suggested Sotomayor, the most senior liberal on the conservative Supreme Court, should step down so that Biden could try to name a replacement in the short window before Trump takes office in January. Talk has simmered for months over the possibility of Sotomayor retiring so that Biden could name a successor and ensure the seat remains a reliable vote for the liberal wing, but that has gone nowhere.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that he doesn’t think Sotomayor should step down from the court.
“I don’t think it’s sensible,” Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
The process of moving a Supreme Court nominee takes considerable time — often several months. Even assuming there are no problems with a potential nominee, there is not likely enough time for Biden to secure a confirmation before the GOP takes control of the Senate in early January.
Sotomayor, who is 70, has been public about living with type 1 diabetes, though she has shown little sign of slowing down. She is a relentless questioner during oral arguments and has appeared in public repeatedly in recent months.
In May, Sotomayor told an audience at Harvard University that she sometimes cries after the court hands down its decisions. And in January, speaking at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, Sotomayor said she lived with “frustration” over the court’s direction and that “every loss truly traumatizes me in my stomach and in my heart.”
“But I have to get up the next morning and keep on fighting,” she said.
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