Justice Sotomayor Responds After Calls For Her To Step Down
Despite calls from some liberal activists for Justice Sonia Sotomayor to retire so that Democrats could fill her Supreme Court seat before a potential power shift in January, sources close to her say she is not planning to step down, according to a report published Sunday.
"This is no time to lose her important voice on the court," one source familiar with Sotomayor’s views told The Wall Street Journal. "She just turned 70 and takes better care of herself than anyone I know."
Since her appointment in 2009 by President Barack Obama, Sotomayor has been the senior liberal justice on the court, a position that makes her a leader within the liberal minority. With six conservative justices, three of whom were appointed by Trump during his first term, the liberal bloc has increasingly found itself dissenting on significant issues such as abortion rights and presidential power.
Widely recognized for her advocacy in civics education and for her bestselling memoirs and children’s books, Sotomayor also enjoys broad public recognition, even having appeared on Sesame Street. In February, a Marquette Law School poll showed that Sotomayor held a higher favorability rating among Americans than any other justice.
The day after the recent election, David Dayen, executive editor of the American Prospect magazine, tweeted that it "would probably be a good day for Sotomayor to retire." Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan also mentioned her long-standing Type 1 diabetes, reiterating a suggestion he had made in an April op-ed for her to consider stepping down.
The debate over Sotomayor’s potential retirement, along with the future of other similarly aged conservative justices, reflects lessons learned from the 2020 death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Despite calls from some liberals to retire during Obama’s presidency, Ginsburg held her seat, ultimately passing away at 87. Her death allowed Trump to solidify a conservative majority by appointing Justice Amy Coney Barrett just before Democrats regained control of the White House and Senate.
Concern over weakening the liberal wing prompted some activists to call for Justice Stephen Breyer's retirement after Biden took office and Democrats controlled the Senate in 2021. Activists even hired a billboard truck bearing the message "Breyer, Retire." He eventually stepped down in 2022 at age 83, making way for Biden to appoint Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, was one of the first prominent legal voices urging Ginsburg to retire under Obama, writing a 2014 op-ed advocating for her departure. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, Chemerinsky said the political landscape has changed since then. "It is far more uncertain that the Democrats could confirm a successor than in summer 2014," he explained. "And Sotomayor is 70," whereas Ginsburg was 81 when he urged her to retire.
On the conservative side, some suggest that constitutional originalist Justices Clarence Thomas, 76, and Samuel Alito, 74, might consider retirement before the 2026 midterms to allow for appointments under a Republican administration. Conservative legal activist Mike Davis speculated on social media after the election that "Justice Sam Alito is gleefully packing up his chambers."
However, others view such speculation as improper. Leonard Leo, leader of the Federalist Society and a former adviser to Trump, told the Journal that seeing Thomas and Alito "as meat that has reached its expiration date is unwise, uninformed, and, frankly, just crass." Both justices have given no public indication of interest in retirement.
This mix of calls for retirement and criticism of those calls underscores the ongoing politicization surrounding Supreme Court appointments as advocates on both sides consider the potential for shifts in the court's ideological balance.