U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Monday she feels daily “frustration” as conservative justices move the country to the ideological right.
In an appearance at the University of California, Berkely School of Law, Sotomayor was asked how she copes with the consistently conservative rulings from the court.
“Every loss truly traumatizes me,” but “I get up the next morning,” she said in response to the question, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. The crowd — about 1,300 students — applauded.
In her remarks, she criticized her “originalist colleagues” whom she said have come up with “new ways to interpret the Constitution,” changing rulings “that some of us believed were well established,” the Chronicle reported.
The 6-3 conservative court has had an eventful couple of terms, making its mark on some of the most consequential aspects of everyday life — from overturning the federal right to an abortion to ruling affirmative action in colleges unconstitutional.
Expand the court. “But republicans will do the same” you might say. To that I say “okay, let the court be a million judges to show just how shitty and ridiculous it is, let it collapse under its own stupidity. Besides, the conservatives already control the court, so there’s really nothing to lose.”
Make every US citizen a justice upon turning the minimum age for a Supreme Court justice.
Upon learning this in High School I was baffelled… There are no requirements to being a Supreme Court justice in the constitution. Simply that you are appointed by the president, and Congress confirms you. You don’t need a background in law at all. There is no age requirement at all. There aren’t even citizenship requirements. By the Constitution, Biden could appoint Gretta Thornburg to the Supreme Court, and Congress could confirm her, and we would have Justice Thornburg for the next 70-odd years.
https://www.findingalawyer.org/supreme-court-justice-qualifications/
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My favored tactic is to – Bam! Expand the court to 11 in one year, than 13 in two. Nuke the filibuster if you have to.
Then Democrats can sit down with Republicans and say “You can let us appoint 4 justices to lifetime terms and wait until you get the Presidency and both houses of Congress to expand it more, or you can work with us to pass an amendment to set up term limits and other reforms so the SC is no longer a political football”.
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The main issue is confirmations. If enough Republicans hold the Senate, they can stall confirmation until their guy comes into office and then stuff the court further.
NO position should ever be for life. It’s ridiculous that we have 70/80/90 year olds running things forever until they die. They should retire and let the next generation take the reins. Age and term limits. Courts should not be able to be packed like this. Nothing should.
They should also probably be held to some ethical standards, but that’s too much for the nation’s most powerful court/justices. Nevermind the US code of conduct says justices are to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.
But who needs a functional government or justice system? It’s just keeping big business from making even more money, and destroying the planet faster.
I wonder why we don’t elect judges like we do at the local level. What were the founding fathers thought process on allowing the president to appoint them?
The thought was that if they had to campaign and run for elections they’d be too swayed by political pressure to be impartial. As we’ve seen, having the Executive branch do it doesn’t prevent this if politics becomes hyper-partisan. This is part of why Washington was opposed to political parties even existing. I think history has proven him right.
That is political as well.
Also, the fact that the reasoning behind this is because they don’t want the justices to be pressured by partisian issues is ironic considering…
I don’t see how anyone ever thought that a president appointing them would be bipartisan. Ironic indeed.
“Ok, we want to find the best legal minds in the country to serve on the Supreme Court in a fair manner without political bias. How do we select them?”
“Let’s put the selection in the hands of a politician!” (With confirmations also done by politicians)
“Brilliant!”
Though I guess that any other system put in place could be corrupted in some other way.
Australian High Court justices have an age limit.
I’ve long held that if a “life sentence” in prison is 20 years, then 20 years should be the lifetime term of a SC justice.
Limits on age and terms, as well as tests for competency and ethics, would also be great additions. It’s kind of amazing this isn’t already a thing.
Not like she can do anything either. If she steps down now, Biden replaces her, demographics of the court stay the same.
All she can do is hang on until Thomas and Alito are replaced and hope that happens under a Democratic President
That will flip the court from 6-3 conservative to 5-4 liberal, but then the problem is the next 3 oldest justices are Sotomayor, Roberts and Kagen.
The truly frustrating thing about all of this is that the courts composition can be changed by acts of congress. The republicans pulled some massive bullshit to get this court. Biden could run with the campaign promise to unfuck the Supreme Court. This would be massively popular. Just add justices to rebalance the court. It can be done.
As much as I’d like that, the new justices would still need to get approved by congress. Unless we get 60 Dem senators, we’re stuck at 9 for the foreseeable future.
I don’t believe the filibuster applies to judicial nominees anymore.
It doesn’t, but an act to change the size of the court would have to go through the House and Senate and we don’t have the votes in either body for that right now.
Fun fact, the last time we changed the court size was to SHRINK it from 10 to 7 in order to deny President Johnson (no, the other one) a Supreme court pick.
After he got bounced and replaced by Grant, they increased it back to 9 where it has been ever since.
I wouldn’t be averse to something similar, shrink the court from 9 to 5, elimimate the 4 most recently added justices. Yeah, we’d lose Brown-Jackson, but that’s a small price to pay to get rid of Trump’s nominees.
The court would then split 2 conservative, 2 liberal with Roberts as the swing vote.
IIRC, most legal scholars believe that shrinking the court doesn’t get rid of existing justices as they are appointed for life. It simply prevents the appointment of new ones.
Seal Team Six and presidential immunity can take care of that.
Biden could run with the campaign promise to unfuck the Supreme Court. This would be massively popular.
It would be massively popular but I don’t see it galvanizing new voters. Anyone civically engaged enough to understand the fuckedness of the supreme court was already planning to vote Biden.
He doesn’t need new voters, he needs to energize his base which he seems intent on demoralizing with his Gaza bullshit.
He very much needs new voters. Anyway I’m not saying he shouldn’t do it, I’m saying it’s not a big vote getter.
It’s sad how true this is.
I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what is it with your username?
It is just a generated string of letters and characters.
It is just a generated string of letters and characters.
Yeah that much is obvious. I’m just surprised you’re actually satisfied with it and using that name.
I don’t keep this account as a personal thing. It doesn’t matter to me as I’m not building relationships or anything so I’m happy with the minimal amount of effort I put into creating the name.
I don’t keep this account as a personal thing. It doesn’t matter to me as I’m not building relationships or anything so I’m happy with the minimal amount of effort I put into creating the name.
Fair enough, though it seems like going out in public wearing a clown outfit. If you like clowns you may be okay with it, but you’d still stand out when no one else is wearing a clown outfit.
Thanks for replying/explanation.
She could take out one of her colleagues. She’s right there in the room with them. They’d never see it coming.
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Wait for the conservative justices to side with Trump and say that the president has absolute legal immunity
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Hand Biden a gun
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???
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Profit.
Biden wouldn’t do anything because…
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She’s a 69 year old type 1 diabetic…
You know what the average lifespan for a type 1 diabetic woman is?
68 years old…
She should have stepped down immediately and let Biden replace her. Instead if Biden keeps fucking up, trump could very likely get another.
She does have the very best healthcare in the country though…
True.
But stress is something that needs to be avoided to help increase lifespan with type 1 diabetes.
And she’s not shy about how she’s doing
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she’s “tired” and “working harder than I ever had” due to the Supreme Court’s big cases, growing emergency calendar, and briefs from outside groups.
“And to be almost 70 years old, this isn’t what I expected,” Sotomayor said Monday during an appearance at the University of California, Berkeley’s law school. “But it is still work that is all consuming and I understand the impact the court has on people and on the country, and sometimes the world. And so it is what keeps me going.”
Just like RBG, she’s taking it personal and thinking only her can “fight the good fight”.
She’s great and all, but we can find someone 30 years younger with a much lower risk of dying while Republicans have power.
This is bigger than any one person.
No, they can’t guarantee Sinema or Manchin so they don’t for sure have 51 votes to confirm. If Sotomayor leaves before there’s a guarantee she’ll get replaced with someone else on the left, the consequences could be very bad.
If she were more worried about the country than her own position she would have stepped down. And yes I know this throws shade on RBG. I’m still fucking angry she didn’t step down before it was too late. It’s not like she didn’t have plenty of warning. I judge the justices by their actions and it seems they don’t give enough of a shit. And now the rest of us pay the price.
With the benefit of hindsight, we know that even with Obama in office, the Republican Senate would have blocked a new appointment for RBGa seat after 2014. Perhaps it was naive of her to stay beyond the age of 80, but not many were calling for her to retire in 2014.
It really only became apparent how fucked the situation became when Merrick Garland’s nomination was blocked in 2016 and then especially when Trump was elected. Looking back, we can predict when the optimal time to retire would have been, but in the moment, it wasn’t so clear.
I was in DC recently, and I saw Ruth’s grave, and just wish she knew the legacy she created.
What legacy is that? She wasn’t the first to die in the office?
No but by refusing to retire when Obama was still able to appoint her replacement (because she believed Hillary would win) she inadvertently allowed Trump to pick her replacement
Even before Trump was elected, the Republican Senate blocked Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland. Had RBG stepped down and Republicans blocked two nominations between 2014-2016, we would be blaming her for stepping down too soon and giving Trump two nominations on day one.
It’s really just a result of a shitty terrible system, and RBG doesn’t deserve all the blame for the current situation we’re seeing.
Exactly. People forgot how the Republicans have been playing dirty tricks every step of the way. Then they gaslight the left into blaming each other instead of them.
One of the reasons they were able to get away with that is it was Scalia who had died and was being replaced. The media was pretty complicit in the whole thing, Obama being able to swing the court to the left was something the powers that be were against.
She tried to be a decent person in an indecent time.
OK so she wasn’t the first to put her own personal legacy ahead of the good of people, so it’s all good then?
If she had simply step aside and let Obama replace her, we would not have this packed illegitimate Supreme Court.
That selfish decision continues to make waves, and those waves continue to hurt us the people. Those waves hurt the rights of women who once look to RBG as an icon.
Well, I suppose she is still an icon, an icon for selfishness and personal pride over the good of the entire fucking nation.
Oh but she wasn’t the first so it’s okay!
I commented elsewhere in this thread, but it bears repeating, even under Obama, Republicans were blocking nominations. Putting the current situation of the court with the benefit of hindsight, completely on RBG, is misguided.
Who’s upvoting these dogshit takes? I feel like you either had to be 10 years old or under a rock in 2015 if you actually believe this. Clearly all our problems are caused by well intentioned public servants not the literal fascists
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You know… legally speaking, she is allowed to kill the other justices.
Boomers dying out will be the best thing for this country.
I don’t think Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett are Boomers. (Kavanaugh IS within months though.)
We’re making them as fast as they are dying. The youth have been crippled by the greed of the old for generations.
Yeah, welcome to the fucking club.
No mention that the supreme court is about to dismantle democratic control over agencies. There is a big power grab underway to deregulate everything and cripple government. Only know of it from here:
Damn, I feel like she opened up a lot more than SCOTUS judges typically do. That’s telling.
I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be
Then she should vote for the people more.
What are you even trying to say
I said what I said.
Okay, that’s fine, but what do you mean? Do you have examples of when she voted against “the people”?
I put the quotation marks because I’m not sure which people you’re referring to.
Conservatives are not the majority in the USA
A wiki link to the Overton window? Please. Use your words.
I’m not soothing petulance. You know very well what I’m saying.
Lol. No. Please, do explain for the class.
I wonder if she thinks she should have worked harder at convincing RBG to retire sooner. You know, when Obama was president.
Yes I’m sure both sides get upset when they’re out numbered and cant get their legislationthrough. Unfortunately it’s the way the system is setup and she’s been on both ends. This isn’t something she should be complaining about.
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There has never been a leftist US supreme court, regardless of what fantasy you’ve concocted in Enlightened Centrismland
This is rich coming from someone who consistently votes left of “constitutionalist”. She’s just angry she’s losing.
There is a vast chasm between constitutionalist and originalist. Sotomeyer sticks to the Constitution but not the original intent … and that’s as it should be.
