This is an obviously “racist” move by Democrats, sickening actually. My hands are shaking as I type this. Literally.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, self-described as the “wise Latina,” reportedly is not in great health. Not on the verge of death, but not well.
Democrats fear Sotomayor will “Ruth Bader Ginsburg” them, and will die when Republicans control the Senate and presidency in 2025.
What a time it was.
LANGUAGE WARNING
They are still fuming at how in late 2020 Republicans rushed through Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ginsburg in the waning months of the first Trump presidency.
In April 2024, I wrote about the growing chorus of Democrats calling on Sotomayor to resign, Then The Liberals Came For Sonia Sotomayor:
Amy Coney Barrett filled the Ginsburg seat. Democrats remain furious over it, it’s the deep pain that will not heal.So now liberals are targeting Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the self-described ‘Wise Latina’ who is 69 years old. Per the mortality tables, on average, she has 12 more years to live. So it’s unlikely she would die or retire from illness during the next Trump term. But she apparently has some sort of health issues, so much so she reportedly travels with a medic.So for Democrats, having Sotomayor hang on is a roll of the dice. That’s a gamble they don’t want to take, so there is a growing chorus of liberal/leftist pundits calling for Sotomayor to resign.
With Kamala having just gone down to defeat, but Democrats still controlling the Senate and the presidency until January, Democrats are debating whether and how to force Sotomayor out so Biden can select a nominee and Democrats can confirm the nominee by ear end. In the vest of cases, it would be a logistical stretch. Ginsburg died on September 18:
Barret was nominated on September 20 of that year; Senate Judiciary hearings started on October 12; and she was confirmed and sworn in on October 26. So it’s not impossible that Democrats could get it done by late December, but there are all sorts of additional scheduling problems like holidays and the normal recess. But it would be heavy lift.
Yet it’s the focus of a lot of maneuvering. Politico reports:
Two months from now, Republicans will be in control of the U.S. Senate. They’ll have at least 53 seats. And as soon as DONALD TRUMP is sworn in on Jan. 20, they’ll be revving up the old conveyor belt of conservative judicial nominees, tilting the courts further in their favor for decades.For Democrats, this is a hair-on-fire moment. And though the discourse in the media is presently dominated by recriminations about how this all happened, another arguably more urgent conversation is blowing up largely outside of public view: whether to push for 70-year-old Supreme Court Justice SONIA SOTOMAYOR to step down while Dems still have the power to approve her replacement.This isn’t simply some flight of fancy happening among progressive activists online. It’s a conversation members of the Senate are actively engaged in.One senator Playbook spoke with last night told us that the topic has come up repeatedly this week in talks with their colleagues. Inevitably, those conversations end up with a recognition of two realities: (1) It’d be a risky play with the party already trying to figure out how to handle a crowded lame-duck session, and (2) no senator seems to be offering to be the person to put his or her neck on their line publicly (or even privately) by pushing for Sotomayor to step aside.The conversations have gone far enough that a possible replacement has been bandied about: D.C. Circuit Judge J. MICHELLE CHILDS, who was on President JOE BIDEN’s SCOTUS short list. It’s obvious why: Childs has already been vetted, is seen as moderate and even received backing by conservative senators like LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) last go round. (Though you can be damn sure that Republicans would do everything imaginable to stop a lame-duck confirmation.)But inevitably, this chatter runs into major logistical concerns.
The NY Post adds that not all Democrats are on board, at least not publicly, with throwing Sotomayor overboard:
But at least some of the senators are loath to publicly leak the notion or even privately urge Sotomayor, a solid liberal vote on the high court and its first Hispanic justice, to leave her post over potential health issues, the report said….A former Senate Democratic aide told The Post it’s a fool’s errand to think Sotomayer would step aside and the Senate would be able to confirm a Democratic replacement in time.“That’s insane. That’s not going to happen,” the source said. “If Sotomayor were to resign, [Dem Senate Leader] Chuck Schumer couldn’t get a confirmation done in time.”Those involved in the talks also have acknowledged that it would be difficult to pull off during President Biden’s lame-duck session.“We would have to have assurances from any shaky senator that they would back a nominee in the lame-duck,” a senior Democratic source told Politico.
Leave Sonia alone.
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