It looks like the Democrats are starting to sweat over Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and with good reason. Rumor has it that party leaders are secretly debating whether they can “gently encourage” Sotomayor to step down, all in the hopes of keeping the Supreme Court from tilting any further to the right under a potential Trump presidency. But let’s face it—forcing out a sitting justice, especially one who’s the first Latina on the bench and a reliable progressive vote, is hardly a smooth move.
You’d think they’d have learned a lesson from 2020 when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg held on just a little too long, passing away under Trump’s watch and opening the door for Amy Coney Barrett to be confirmed. That move sealed a solid conservative majority on the Court, and Democrats are apparently desperate to avoid a rerun. But pushing Sotomayor out?
That’s a high-stakes, high-risk game, especially with the Senate’s Democratic majority about to slip away in just two months. If Sotomayor were to step down, the Democrats would be racing against the clock to nominate and confirm a successor—someone they’re hoping could be D.C. Circuit Judge J. Michelle Childs, a name they’ve already started whispering about as a “moderate” who might even get a nod from a few Republicans.
🚨 WSJ REPORT: SCOTUS Justice Sonia Sotomayor “expected to remain” on the court for the foreseeable future.
Democrats are concerned because Sotomayor is 70 years old and has Type 1 diabetes.
GOP Senate has already said they can not replace her this session, but can Dems ram…
— Publius (@OcrazioCornPop) November 10, 2024
Of course, the real question is whether they can get this done without blowing up in their faces. Democratic leaders are sweating bullets about senators like Joe Manchin or even moderate Republicans like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. All it would take is one senator balking, and suddenly, the Democrats would be stuck with an unfilled vacancy for Republicans to fill after the lame-duck session ends. Talk about a gamble.
And then there’s the elephant in the room: the optics of this maneuver. Just last year, any whisper of pushing Sotomayor into retirement was met with a firestorm of accusations—“ableism” and “racism” were the loudest charges from their own base. Activists were aghast, demanding how Democrats could even consider nudging out the first Latina justice, one of the most progressive voices on the Court. And given that Sotomayor, only 70, is in no apparent rush to leave, any overt pressure from the party would likely trigger another wave of backlash.
Despite calls from some liberals for Justice Sonia Sotomayor to step down while Democrats can fill her seat political power changes hands in January, she has no plans to retire, people close to her said https://t.co/NDBu71IvB0 via @WSJ
— Fan Tan Dane (@FanTanDane) November 10, 2024
Yet here we are again, with prominent Democrats now admitting that they need to capitalize on the “fear” of a conservative takeover of the Court while they still hold the reins. Molly Coleman, head of the People’s Parity Project, bluntly told Politico that Democrats can’t afford to be squeamish about “having these conversations.” According to Coleman, Democrats need to recognize that their window of power doesn’t stay open forever, and if they don’t act now, they’re likely to end up watching as the Supreme Court tilts even further right for a generation.
But in the end, this whole scheme reeks of irony. For years, Democrats have painted themselves as the party of progress and diversity, yet here they are considering pushing out a groundbreaking justice to protect their own agenda. It’s a classic case of “Do as I say, not as I do.” And if their plan backfires, it could end up gifting Republicans exactly what they’re hoping to avoid: an open seat that another Trump administration could use to cement a conservative legacy on the Supreme Court. So, while the Democrats bicker and backtrack, Republicans will be watching—and probably grinning.
