As the Democratic Party handles the fallout from their devastating election defeat this week, some have come up with an unlikely plan to oust liberal Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor.
In just under two months, Republicans will control the U.S. Senate with a likely majority of at least 53 seats. Once Trump takes office, they will have free reign to start appointing conservative judicial nominees, shaping federal courts for generations to come.
According to Politico’s Playbook, Democratic leaders are “agonizing” over whether to try and force Sotomayor out of the door before Trump takes office in January.
The 70-year-old justice is known to suffer from diabetes and other health issues, creating the possibility that her seat may become open during Trump’s presidency.
The report explains:
For Democrats, this is a hair-on-fire moment. And though the discourse in the media is presently dominated by recriminations about how this all happened, another arguably more urgent conversation is blowing up largely outside of public view: whether to push for 70-year-old Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to step down while Dems still have the power to approve her replacement.
This isn’t simply some flight of fancy happening among progressive activists online. It’s a conversation members of the Senate are actively engaged in.
One senator Playbook spoke with last night told us that the topic has come up repeatedly this week in talks with their colleagues. Inevitably, those conversations end up with a recognition of two realities:
It’d be a risky play with the party already trying to figure out how to handle a crowded lame-duck session, and no senator seems to be offering to be the person to put his or her neck on their line publicly (or even privately) by pushing for Sotomayor to step aside.
The report adds that these shady figures have already identified a replacement: D.C. Circuit Judge J. Michelle Childs, who was previously on Joe Biden’s SCOTUS short list:
It’s obvious why: Childs has already been vetted, is seen as moderate and even received backing by conservative senators like Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) last go round. (Though you can be damn sure that Republicans would do everything imaginable to stop a lame-duck confirmation.)
But inevitably, this chatter runs into major logistical concerns. If Sotomayor were to resign, “she can sort of resign conditionally on someonebeing appointed to replace her,” the Democratic senator told Playbook.
“But she can’t resign conditioned on a specific person. What happens if she resigns and the nominee to replace her isn’t confirmed and the next president fills the vacancy?”
Such reports underline the current state of overwhelming panic across the Democratic Party, who are still reeling from Donald Trump’s landslide victory while also planning out their resistance to his agenda.
During his first term in office, Trump successfully confirmed three traditionalist Supreme Court justices, all of whom have acted as a guardrail against the excesses of the Biden regime.
There is also speculation that Trump or those close to him may urge Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who are aged 76 and 74 respectively, to retire within the next few years in order to shore up a conservative majority for a generation. Whether this happens still remains to be seen.
