Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 70, who has type 1 diabetes, is allegedly resisting leaving the court, reportedly disappointing leftists who want her to step down because of her health so that lame-duck President Joe Biden can replace her before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
Sotomayor is the third-oldest member of the court; Justice Clarence Thomas is 76, and Justice Samuel Alito is 74.
“Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has made clear she has no plans to step down, according to people close to her,” CNN reported.
“She’s in great health, and the court needs her now more than ever,” one source reportedly close to Sotomayor told CNN.
Leftists are concerned because liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in 2020, refused to leave the court while she had cancer and Barack Obama was president despite public pleas to step down. One critic wrote in 2014, “She must retire. Right now. While we’re at it, Stephen Breyer should retire too. … If Ginsburg and Breyer wait to retire, it will only serve to maximize the possibility that a Republican president will choose their successor and in the process undo much of what they’ve worked for their entire careers.”
“Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg should retire from the Supreme Court after the completion of the current term in June,” another critic wrote, “She turned 81 on Saturday and by all accounts she is healthy and physically and mentally able to continue. But only by resigning this summer can she ensure that a Democratic president will be able to choose a successor who shares her views and values.”
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Obama met with Ginsburg in 2013 and reportedly hinted that she should leave the court. She did not. After her death from pancreatic cancer in late 2020, President Trump replaced her with Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
In January 2020, the Supreme Court ruled for the Trump administration, which had asked for permission on the “public charge” rule, banning non-citizens from receiving a green card if the government thought those non-citizens would rely on public assistance. Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog wrote, “That ruling put on hold a pair of orders by a federal district court in New York, which had blocked the government from enforcing the rule anywhere in the nation.”
The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could enforce that rule in Illinois while the federal government went ahead and appealed a judge’s ruling barring the federal government from enforcing it. That ruling prompted Sotomayor, who was nominated for her seat on the court by former President Barack Obama, to attack the five so-called “conservative” judges on the court who gave the Trump administration a 5-4 victory in the case as being biased in favor of President Trump, writing, “the Court’s recent behavior on stay applications has benefited one litigant over all others.”