The CNN pundit Bakari Sellers suggested Sunday that Joe Biden should call on his ex-prosecutor vice president to replace Sonia Sotomayor as a justice on the Supreme Court.
That hypothetical would be quite the career whiplash for Kamala Harris, 60, who still isn’t a week removed from a crippling election defeat that saw her lose in all seven swing states. It’d also require Sonia Sotomayor to abruptly call it quits—something the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday she isn’t interested in doing.
Still, it’s an ask that Sellers and a handful of liberal activists have floated amid fears that, should the 70-year-old progressive die during Trump’s second term, she’d be replaced with yet another uber-conservative justice.
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Sellers, a former Democratic lawmaker from South Carolina, indicated he’d be happy with a number of liberal replacements for Sotomayor, including Sri Srinivasan, 57; Robert Wilkins, 61; and Michelle Childs, who is 58.
Most important to Sellers, he said, was that Sotomayor—who has diabetes—call it quits and put to bed any risk she might die with Trump in office.
“Sotomayor needs to resign,” Sellers posted to X. “The court is currently 6-3 [in conservative’s favor]. This would limit Trumps ability to make it 7-2. It’s silly to believe there is no difference.”
Sellers said Sotomayor could “very likely be another story much like RBG” if she ignores calls to resign. That’s a reference to the trailblazing justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died during the final months of Trump’s first term and opened the door for him to quickly appoint Amy Coney Barrett to replace her in 2020.
The conservative-majority Supreme Court has been blamed with overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating the federal constitutional right to abortion. It’s also ruled in Trump’s favor regarding presidential immunity in his federal criminal cases that have since been put on ice by the special prosecutor Jack Smith.
Politico reported Friday that some Democratic Senators have had discussions about pressuring Sotomayor off the court while they still have a majority—something Republicans will possess again in January—to confirm her replacement.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), 83, has indicated he’s not a fan of a Sotomayor pressure campaign at the final hour of Biden’s presidency.
“I don’t think it’s sensible,” Sanders told NBC News on Sunday.
