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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSome Legal Scholars Push For Justice Sonia Sotomayor To Retire
Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, remembers how this story went last time, and hes begging for a different ending.
Sotomayor has been an outstanding justice, he said. But the Ruth Bader Ginsburg precedent ought to be extremely sobering. The cost of her failing to be replaced by a Democratic president with a Democratic Senate would be catastrophic.
At 69, Sonia Sotomayor is the oldest justice on the Supreme Court to have been picked by a Democrat. And now, Democrats may be about to lose the Senate, White House or both. But on the left, there is little open debate about whether she should retire.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ar-BB1kC3dm
Doc Sportello
(7,522 posts)IDK with Sinema and Manchin there
Celerity
(43,419 posts)dawg
(10,624 posts)As it stands, the best candidates will always be passed over for being "too old". And random happenstace will have more effect on the compostion of the court than the will of the voters.
stopdiggin
(11,317 posts)that Thomas and Alito retire?
Are we only supposed to clutch pearls and do the hand wringing on one side of the aisle?
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NoRethugFriends
(2,315 posts)tritsofme
(17,380 posts)Alito and Thomas dont.
This might be the last opportunity Democrats have to confirm a SCOTUS nominee for a long time, Sotomayor should give retirement serious consideration.
stopdiggin
(11,317 posts)in being replaced at all.
As for the rest - I guess I thought the sarcasm layered through my post was - readily apparent.
(I will try to apply a 'thingie' to the next post that comes within an approximate football field .. )
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snowybirdie
(5,230 posts)A woman must retire! A younger one at that! Disgusting show of misogyny.
NoRethugFriends
(2,315 posts)As the only Democratic judges are women.
And I definitely was unhappy that RBG didn't retire.
However, there is no indication I know of of serious life-threatening stuff with Sonia, so I think they are way off base.
JohnSJ
(92,233 posts)who said there was no difference between Hillary or Trump, and they would not vote against the lesser of the two evils
Havent they done enough damage?
In 2016, in every critical swing state Hillary lost by less than 1%, while Jill Stein received 1% of the vote.
It didnt take much
Do these wonderful legal intellectuals think Biden will lose? If Biden loses, the odds arent to good for the Senate since both are determined by statewide elections
My advice, how about getting out the vote to win the WH, and both houses of Congress, since it wont matter if Trump is reelected, because the country will be finished in that case
Just focus on winning the election instead of stupid last minute games that would most likely be blocked by the Senate republicans anyone
That is where we need to spend time. Winning the election
Cartoonist
(7,317 posts)I think to have her retire would be saying that Joe has already lost the election.
onecaliberal
(32,864 posts)Can we stop with recon talking points?
Sympthsical
(9,076 posts)Since the 6-3 Court split, she's kind of assumed an aura of elder liberal leader on the Court. I know she's only been there, what, 15 years. But anyone who listens to oral arguments regularly will get it. There's heft and gravitas when she gets going.
tritsofme
(17,380 posts)vacancy.
It would not be surprising if a reelected Biden was forced to face a Republican Senate for the remainder of his term, and there is a high probability for the White House to change party hands after two terms.
This could be Sotomayors last chance to retire and ensure a like-minded replacement for a very long time.
It might not be fair, but it is a strategic consideration that shouldnt be dismissed out of hand.
maxsolomon
(33,345 posts)What's the difference between 6-3 and 7-2, anyway? The Trump 3 are there for decades.
Fla Dem
(23,692 posts)I was a big proponent of Justice Ginsburg retiring as we got closer to the 2016 election. She was a brilliant Justice and so respected. I'm sure she never thought Hillary Clinton would lose the 2016 election to Trump so she hung on banking on Hillary getting elected and then Pres Hillary Clinton appointing a new SCJ to replace her. Unfortunately, as we all know, that wasn't how things worked out.
She was an ailing 87 year old Justice and hung on for s long as she could, but passed in September 2020 and Trump replaced her with Amy Coney Barrett on October 27, 2020 just a month before the November 2020 election which saw Joe Biden boot Trump out of office. But it was too late then.
Are we now facing a similar situation? In my heart I just know Biden will runaway with this election, but for some reason my head is telling me something different.
From oldest to youngest, the ages of the current Supreme Court justices are:
Justice Thomas, 75.
Justice Alito, 73.
Justice Sotomayor, 69.
Chief Justice Roberts, 69.
Justice Kagan, 63.
Justice Kavanaugh, 58.
Justice Gorsuch, 56.
Justice Jackson, 53.
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New Records Show Supreme Court's Sonia Sotomayor Took Unusual Step Of Traveling With A Medic
Feb 23, 2024, 02:48 PM EST
HuffPost
|Updated Feb 23, 2024
Snip
Her dissents, with their trademark clarity and righteousness, have made her a favorite of many liberals. But the window in which President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats have an all-but-guaranteed ability to appoint her replacement is rapidly closing. Polls show Biden neck and neck with former President Donald Trump in their likely November rematch, and Democrats face hostile odds of holding on to their slim majority in the Senate, which approves Supreme Court appointments.
Looming over it all is Ruth Bader Ginsburgs fateful decision not to retire from the court under Democratic President Barack Obama, and the minimal party pressure she faced to do so. When Ginsburg ultimately died in September 2020, with Trump in the White House and only weeks before an election he would lose, Trump seized the opportunity to replace her with her ideological opposite.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett cemented a conservative majority that has gone on to decimate abortion rights and affirmative action, curtail protections for LGBTQ+ rights, and thwart major portions of Bidens agenda, such as student debt relief.
Its fair to point all this out, said Gabe Roth, the executive director of Fix the Court, which sued to release the documents.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sonia-sotomayor-medic-retirement_n_65d8ec05e4b0cc1f2f7bab77
Snip
Of course we can always hope for a career ending event for either or both Thomas 75 and or Alito 73 before the election. But sometimes it's smarter to take the certain path rather than one you don't know where it ends up.
markpkessinger
(8,401 posts)It is based, in the first place, on the mistaken notion that if only Ruth Bader Ginsburg had retired while Obama was president and Democrats held the Senate, we would be in a different situation with respect to the Supreme Court. But what these folks fail to remember is that McConnell was hellbent on preventing Obama from naming a third justice to the court. And Republicans, at that point, still had the filibuster with respect to Supreme Court nominees, and they wouldn't have hesitated to use it!
Marthe48
(16,975 posts)Dems about to lose the Senate and White House? I'll believe that bs when I see it.