A Democratic senator has added his voice to the growing calls for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to retire and thereby allow President Joe Biden to appoint a new justice.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said Justice Sotomayor, an Obama appointee, “should weigh the competing factors” when it comes to considering when to leave the bench.
“I’m very respectful of Justice Sotomayor,” Mr. Blumenthal told NBC News. “I have great admiration for her. But I think she really has to weigh the competing factors. We should learn a lesson. And it’s not like there’s any mystery here about what the lesson should be. The old saying, graveyards are full of indispensable people, ourselves in [the Senate] included.”
At age 69, Justice Sotomayor is the current oldest Democrat-appointed justice. She has not publicly responded to the calls and has made no indication about retiring.
“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,” Mr. Blumenthal said, without elaborating.
The senator also said that “life is pretty good for a retired justice,” adding that “they get paid on par with what they’ve received before.”
“She’s a highly respected intellect and figure with a great record of accomplishments. So she would have a lot of opportunities for continued public service,” he continued.
Activists and left-wing media pundits have started to push for her to consider retiring while President Biden is in office. Earlier in his presidency, activists pressed then-Justice Stephen Breyer to step down to make sure the seat would stay in the hands of a left-leaning jurist.
More than two years ago, Justice Breyer, now 83, retired and was ultimately replaced by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Biden appointee.
Notably, there was significant pressure for then-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire from the Supreme Court before she died in September 2020 while President Trump was still in office. Justice Amy Coney Barrett was nominated to the Supreme Court in October of that year by the former president.
In response to the pressure, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Wednesday that it is a “personal decision.”
“That is not something that we get involved in. But it is something for, obviously, any justice on the bench ... they should be given the space and the freedom to make that decision. I don’t have anything else to say beyond that,” she said.
Outside of Mr. Blumenthal’s comments to NBC News, several other Democratic senators said they won’t be making suggestions about whether Justice Sotomayor should retire.
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told the channel that she’s “not going to be talking about anybody choosing to retire” after being asked about the justice. Meanwhile, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said he won’t be “joining any calls” for her to leave the court but claimed that the Republican-appointed majority might grow.
“Run it to 7-2 and you go from a captured court to a full MAGA court,” Mr. Whitehouse said. “Certainly I think if Justice Ginsburg had it to do over again, she might have rethought her confidence in her own health.”
Melissa Murray, a professor at New York University School of Law who was a law clerk for Justice Sotomayor, told NBC that she is “very robust” and has signaled she won’t retire. “She’s never said anything to me. She’s never said anything publicly,” she added.
The Epoch Times contacted the Supreme Court on Thursday regarding Mr. Blumenthal’s comments. Mr. Blumenthal’s office has not returned a request for comment.
