Rep. Nydia Velazquez pushes back on calls for Justice Sonia Sotomayor to resign

U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez is pushing back on calls for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to resign soon to give President Joe Biden the chance to appoint a liberal replacement.

The outspoken senior New York lawmaker says fellow Democrats should allow the trailblazing 69-year-old jurist to make her own decision about when or if she wants to step down from the nation’s top court.

“Forcing the only Latina on the Court to retire isn’t going to get us a liberal majority back,” Velazquez tweeted late Thursday.

Velazquez, 70, the dean of the Puerto Rican caucus known affectionately as "la luchadora," or the fighter, was responding to remarks by Sen. Richard Blumenthal suggesting Sotomayor should consider stepping aside given her age and less-than-robust health.

There are only three liberal judges on the nine-member court, with conservatives holding six spots.

Blumenthal, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that handles Supreme Court appointments, said he has “great admiration” for the Bronx-born Sotomayor, but everyone should consider whether it’s time to retire.

“We should learn a lesson. And it’s not like there’s any mystery here about what the lesson should be,” Blumenthal, 78, said. “The old saying: Graveyards are full of indispensable people.”

Blumenthal and other liberals worry that Sotomayor, who suffers from diabetes, might be forced to leave office by ill health or death during the next president’s four-year term.

Of course that would only matter if Biden loses his reelection fight to former President Donald Trump, making it a touchy subject for fellow Democrats.

“We can’t change the past. What’s done is done,” Velazquez said. “I believe we can win this November, but based on your comments, Senator (Blumenthal), it seems you’ve given up.”

“A 78-year-old telling a 69-year-old it’s time to retire. Seriously?” asked U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Texas Democrat. “Let’s focus on winning in November, not planning for defeat.”

Democrats are scarred by Republicans’ extraordinarily political success at stacking the top court with conservative justices and shifting it far to the right in recent years.

After the death of sitting Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016, the GOP-controlled Senate successfully rebuffed then-President Barack Obama’s attempt to appoint a replacement, allowing Trump to appoint Justice Neil Gorsuch after he won the White House.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, known as a consensus-minded conservative, resigned in 2018, giving Trump ample time to replace him with controversial Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Most notably, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in office less than two months before Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, giving Trump a chance to appoint a third right-wing judge in Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Many liberals, including some of Ginsburg’s strongest admirers, say she should have stepped aside when Democrats held the White House and the Senate to prevent putting the seat at risk.

Although he didn’t mention RBG by name, Blumenthal made little effort to conceal that he believes Sotomayor should consider the danger of a similar scenario unfolding with her seat on the court.

Other senior lawmakers declined to back Blumenthal’s statement, although some said a 7-2 conservative majority could impose its views on Americans in a way even the current court has so far been unable to do.

Sotomayor herself has not commented on the calls for her to retire. Retiring Supreme Court justices in recent years have usually announced their decisions after the end of the court’s spring session in late June.

The White House says retirement is strictly Sotomayor’s call to make.

“That is a decision for that justice to make. Again, it’s a personal decision,” said White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre. “They should be given the space and freedom to make that decision.”

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