Liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor admits she sometimes cries over rulings by the conservative-dominated high court.
Sotomayor, 69, is one of three remaining Democratic-appointed justices on the court along with Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
While it has always been in the minority on the court, the court has recently taken a further right turn with a 6-3 majority, which includes the repeal of Roe v. Wade.
Speaking while receiving an award at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute on Friday, he admitted that it sometimes makes him cry.
“There are days when I come to my office after a case is announced, close the door and cry,” she said.
Liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor admits she sometimes cries over rulings by the conservative-dominated high court.
But he went on to say that right-wing bombings are likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
‘There have been those days. And there are likely more,’ Sotomayor warned.
She did not specify which cases made her cry, but admitted there were intense feelings after certain trials.
‘There are times when I am deeply, deeply sad. There are moments when yes, even I feel despair. “We all do it,” she said.
“But you have to recognize it, you have to accept it, you have to shed the tears and then you have to wipe them away and get up,” Sotomayor added.
Sotomayor, the eldest of three Democratic-appointed justices, has faced calls to retire to ensure Democrats remain at least three justices on the court should Donald Trump win in 2024.
The Atlantic published an op-ed in March. written by journalist Josh Barro calling on President Joe Biden and other Democrats to pressure the 69-year-old liberal judge to retire while the White House and Senate remain in Democratic hands.
Otherwise, Barro warned, Democrats risk seeing the 6-3 conservative majority grow to 7-2 if former President Donald Trump or Senate Republicans are successful.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (left) said Tuesday that it would be a “personal decision” for Justice Sonia Sotomayor (right) to leave the Supreme Court and allow President Joe Biden and the Senate-led Democrats replace her with a younger person. liberal
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in March that it would be a “personal decision” for Justice Sonia Sotomayor to leave the court.
Jean-Pierre was asked Tuesday aboard Air Force One whether the president had considered asking Sotomayor, the country’s first Latina judge, to retire now.
“That is a personal decision that she must make,” the press secretary responded. ‘That’s something she has to do. It is not something we do, lean on, or engage in. So I’m not even going to address that question.”
Barro wrote that he feared identity politics would prevent Democrats from asking Sotomayor to head out the door.
When she was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009, she made history as the country’s first Latina justice.
But because of this, Democrats are “concerned that publicly calling for the first Latina judge to resign seems clumsy or insensitive,” according to a Politico report that Barro cited in her op-ed.
“This is incredibly cowardly,” Barro wrote. ‘Are you concerned about putting control of the Court completely out of reach for more than a generation, but because she is Latina, she can’t rush an official who is putting her entire political project at risk?’
“If this is how the Democratic Party operates, it deserves to lose,” Barro added.
Even if Biden were to win re-election, Democrats’ chances of retaining the Senate are considered low and would prevent them from naming Sotomayor’s successor after January 2025.
President Donald Trump managed to appoint three justices to the Supreme Court
Barro did the math and suggested that if Sotomayor doesn’t retire this year, he will “make a bet that she will remain able to serve until possibly age 78 or even age 82 or 84.”
“(And) she will force the entire Democratic Party to make that high-risk bet on her,” he said.
Sotomayor has been open about some of her health problems, including the fact that she is diabetic and sometimes has to travel with a doctor.
Since Dobbs’ June 2021 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Democrats have been reeling over the makeup of the Supreme Court.
Former President Donald Trump was able to appoint three judges during his only term.
Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch replaced the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia after then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell kept the seat open, even though Obama announced that now-Attorney General Merrick Garland was his choice.
Trump then selected Justice Brett Kavanaugh to replace outgoing conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Finally, in another controversial move, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett was shoehorned into the seat, just days before the 2020 presidential election, held by the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died of cancer on September 18.
Sotomayor spoke at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute, where she received an award.
Sotomayor, seen here with Chief Justice John Roberts, was appointed by Barack Obama
Democrats were outraged by this move, but could do nothing about it, since Republicans controlled both the White House and the Senate.
“I thought Democrats had learned a lesson from the Ruth Bader Ginsburg episode about the importance of playing defense on a Court where you don’t have a majority,” Barro said.
“The only thing liberals have to show for this stubbornness is a bunch of dissidents and kitsch home decor.”
