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In reply to the discussion: Some Legal Scholars Push For Justice Sonia Sotomayor To Retire [View all]Fla Dem
(23,887 posts)I was a big proponent of Justice Ginsburg retiring as we got closer to the 2016 election. She was a brilliant Justice and so respected. I'm sure she never thought Hillary Clinton would lose the 2016 election to Trump so she hung on banking on Hillary getting elected and then Pres Hillary Clinton appointing a new SCJ to replace her. Unfortunately, as we all know, that wasn't how things worked out.
She was an ailing 87 year old Justice and hung on for s long as she could, but passed in September 2020 and Trump replaced her with Amy Coney Barrett on October 27, 2020 just a month before the November 2020 election which saw Joe Biden boot Trump out of office. But it was too late then.
Are we now facing a similar situation? In my heart I just know Biden will runaway with this election, but for some reason my head is telling me something different.
From oldest to youngest, the ages of the current Supreme Court justices are:
Justice Thomas, 75.
Justice Alito, 73.
Justice Sotomayor, 69.
Chief Justice Roberts, 69.
Justice Kagan, 63.
Justice Kavanaugh, 58.
Justice Gorsuch, 56.
Justice Jackson, 53.
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New Records Show Supreme Court's Sonia Sotomayor Took Unusual Step Of Traveling With A Medic
Feb 23, 2024, 02:48 PM EST
HuffPost
|Updated Feb 23, 2024
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Her dissents, with their trademark clarity and righteousness, have made her a favorite of many liberals. But the window in which President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats have an all-but-guaranteed ability to appoint her replacement is rapidly closing. Polls show Biden neck and neck with former President Donald Trump in their likely November rematch, and Democrats face hostile odds of holding on to their slim majority in the Senate, which approves Supreme Court appointments.
Looming over it all is Ruth Bader Ginsburgs fateful decision not to retire from the court under Democratic President Barack Obama, and the minimal party pressure she faced to do so. When Ginsburg ultimately died in September 2020, with Trump in the White House and only weeks before an election he would lose, Trump seized the opportunity to replace her with her ideological opposite.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett cemented a conservative majority that has gone on to decimate abortion rights and affirmative action, curtail protections for LGBTQ+ rights, and thwart major portions of Bidens agenda, such as student debt relief.
Its fair to point all this out, said Gabe Roth, the executive director of Fix the Court, which sued to release the documents.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sonia-sotomayor-medic-retirement_n_65d8ec05e4b0cc1f2f7bab77
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Of course we can always hope for a career ending event for either or both Thomas 75 and or Alito 73 before the election. But sometimes it's smarter to take the certain path rather than one you don't know where it ends up.