Sonia Sotomayor's retirement is a political IQ test
Sonia Sotomayor's retirement is a political IQ test
Are you into politics to win — or to feel good about yourself?
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Sotomayor isn't even the oldest person on the court.
Thomas, 75 6/23/1948
Alito, 74 4/1/1950
Sotomayor, 69 6/25/1954
Roberts, 69 1/27/1955
Kagan, 63 4/28/1960
Kavanaugh, 59 2/12/1965
Gorsuch, 56 8/29/1967
Jackson, 53 9/14/1970
Barrett, 52 1/28/1972Here's the thing though... Thomas and Alito aren't going willfully under a Democratic President, just will not happen.
That would throw the court from 6-3 Conservative back to 5-4 Liberal.
But even if that did happen, the next two oldest are Sotomayor and Roberts, one Liberal and one fairly reliable swing vote.
So we can't just maintain a Democratic president through Thomas an Alito, which is likely to be at least the next two Presidential terms (24-28, 28-32), but beyond that to possibly '36 or even '40.
She does have Type 1 Diabetes though, which unfortunately means an average mortality of 10 years earlier than someone without it. Of course, that's just an average.
Yeah, but someone with her level of health care and ethnic background? She's got a good 11 years left before it's a problem.
So we need to make sure the 2032 election goes to a Democrat and the Senate that year too. ;) Roberts will be on the block around then as well.
We can argue actuarial tables all day, but the point is that replacing Sotomayor with a younger liberal justice has zero downside. It's as close to a free lunch as one can get in politics.
Avoiding political wrangling is why they are lifetime appointments, for better or worse.
Oh, agreed, zero downside, but there's no point calling for it at this time. Let's focus more on re-electing Biden.
They old enough maybe we get lucky and they have a stroke or something else. 74 not young.
I mean, they do have the best health care you can get. Look at someone like Sandra Day O'Connor, lived to 93. Fortunately she stepped down in 2006 when she was 76.