The Democratic Party is secretly fighting over whether to try and force out Justice Sonia Sotomayor to avoid the specter of Donald Trump sending the U.S. Supreme Court further to the right.
Senators are reportedly at odds over whether to put pressure on Sotomayor—the first Latina justice—to step down while Democrats still have the power to usher in her replacement.
Although she is only 70, Sotomayor suffers from Type 1 diabetes and is the oldest of the three remaining Democratic Party-appointed justices.
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There is no suggestion that she has any intention of walking off into the sunset of her own volition.
But party leaders are terrified of a repeat of the 2020 debacle when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died during the first Trump presidency after resisting overtures to step down when an Obama administration could offer a like-for-like ideological replacement. Instead, Trump’s choice of Seventh Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett sent the court lurching further to the right.
With just two months until the Democratic majority in the Senate gives way to the Republicans, it would be a tall order—and some say impossible—for Sotomayor’s successor to be nominated and confirmed.
But, according to Politico’s Playbook, “it’s a conversation members of the Senate are actively involved in.”
The chief obstacles are the timeline and the lack of senators prepared to put their heads above the parapet and suggest Sotomayor should step aside for the sake of the movement.
“What happens if she resigns and the nominee to replace her isn’t confirmed and the next president fills the vacancy?” an unnamed Democratic senator told Playbook.
“We would have to have assurances from any shaky senator that they would back a nominee in the lame duck, because what do you do if she announces she’s going to step down and then [independent West Virginia Sen. Joe] Manchin doesn’t support her and then [Republican Sens.] Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski back off and say they’re not going to support a new nominee? Do you just rescind that letter?” asked a senior Democrat.
Playbook reported that a possible replacement has been earmarked in Washington D.C. Circuit Judge J. Michelle Childs, who has already been vetted and is seen as a moderate by some Republican senators, offering her a better chance of confirmation.
Attempts among party activists last year to initiate the move were met, said Playbook, by accusations of “ableism” and “racism.”
“How dare they suggest pushing the first Latina justice—a solid progressive vote—off the bench?” was the response, said the report.
“I wish it were different, but I think that Democrats need to do a better job of holding on to the fear that they now feel the next time they are in a position of power, because we can’t shut down those conversations,” Molly Coleman, executive director of the People’s Parity Project, told Playbook. “Democrats are not going to win elections forever. They’re not going to be able to nominate Supreme Court justices indefinitely. They need to act when they have power.”
