Sen. Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Support Push for Supreme Court Justice

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Some Democrats want Sotomayor to clear the way for a younger liberal justice who could serve on the court for decades.

Sen. Bernie Sanders threw cold water on the prospect of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 70, stepping down so that President Joe Biden can nominate a younger replacement before he leaves office.

In making the statement on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Nov. 10, Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Senate Democrats, became the first U.S. senator to comment publicly on the topic since President-elect Donald Trump, a Republican, clinched an electoral victory last week. As a result of the election, Democrats are also poised to lose their majority in the Senate, which decides whether to confirm justices, when the new Congress meets in early January.

Moderator Kristen Welker asked Sanders if Sotomayor, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009, should resign to clear the way for a younger liberal justice in the final weeks of the current administration.

Sanders said “no” and acknowledged he’s heard “a little bit” of discussion among Democrat senators about approaching the justice to leave office.

“I don’t think that’s the sensible approach,” Sanders said, without elaborating.

Liberals launched a pressure campaign earlier this year to force left-leaning Sotomayor to retire so Biden could appoint a younger liberal successor before the election.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said in April that Sotomayor should consider calling it quits.

“Justices have to make their personal decisions about their health, and their level of energy, but also to keep in mind the larger national and public interest in making sure that the court looks and thinks like America,” the senator said. “We should learn a lesson, you know? And it’s not like there’s any mystery here about what the lesson should be—that the old saying, ‘graveyards are full of indispensable people,’ ourselves in this body included.”

Left-wing activists helped pressure liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, now 86, to retire in June 2022, which allowed Biden to replace him with liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, now 54.

Little was heard about the campaign to pressure Sotomayor in recent months, but Trump’s election victory last week seemed to give the effort added urgency.

Some Democrats fear that the 6–3 conservative majority on the nation’s highest court could become an even larger majority during Trump’s upcoming second term in office.

Molly Coleman, executive director of the People’s Parity Project, also said in April that she wanted Sotomayor to resign.

“This isn’t personal. This isn’t about one individual justice. It’s nothing to do with what an incredible legal talent Justice Sotomayor is. It’s about what’s in the best interests of the country moving forward,” she told NBC News.

Trump was able to replace liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died of pancreatic cancer complications in September 2020, at 87, with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett days before the 2020 election.

Ginsburg had declined to step down despite her fragile health.

Barrett’s appointment meant that the court had the votes needed to overturn the precedent set by Roe v. Wade in a 5–4 decision in June 2022.

The ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization found there was no right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution and returned the regulation of abortion to the states, which Roe had taken away.

Sotomayor, who turned 70 in June, is reportedly in good health, but has acknowledged she has had Type I diabetes since she was 7 years old.

A group called Fix The Court obtained records from the U.S. Marshals Service showing that Sotomayor has traveled with a medic.

In January 2018, she was reportedly treated at her home for low blood sugar by paramedics but was able to report for work afterward.

The Epoch Times asked Sotomayor for comment but did not receive a reply by publication time.