Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Sunday defended keeping Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court, after some Democrats have reportedly considered pressuring her to step down while President Joe Biden is still in office.
“No,” Sanders said, when asked by “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker whether he thinks Sotomayor, who is 70, should step down from her post while Biden can nominate a liberal replacement.
He added that he’s heard “a little bit” of talk from Democratic senators about asking Sotomayor, who is serving a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, to step aside.
“I don’t think it’s sensible,” Sanders said, without elaborating on his position further.
Since President-elect Donald Trump was projected to win the presidential election last week, there’s been chatter behind the scenes among Democrats about asking Sotomayor to step down, though no elected Democrat has so far publicly called on the justice to resign.
The impetus behind such calls could be that for the next two months, Biden, a Democrat, is still president and the Senate has a Democratic majority that could confirm a liberal justice to replace Sotomayor.
Beginning in January, Trump, a Republican, will control judicial appointments, and he’s projected to have the support of a Republican Senate majority.
If Sotomayor were to die during Trump’s term, she would likely be replaced by a conservative justice, pushing the now 6-3 conservative court further to the right.
Democrats were previously confronted with this scenario when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg chose not to step down during the first half of President Barack Obama’s second term, a time when Democrats had a 55-seat Senate majority.
She died in September 2020 and Trump, then serving his first term, appointed the conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett to replace her, leading to the court’s current conservative makeup.
