Senate Dems are furiously debating whether to pressure US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a 70-year-old diabetic, into resigning so they can try to confirm another jurist before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, a new report says.
Members of the upper chamber’s Democratic caucus broached the sensitive topic after Trump’s electoral landslide Tuesday, according to Politico.
But at least some of the senators are loath to publicly leak the notion or even privately urge Sotomayor, a solid liberal vote on the high court and its first Hispanic justice, to leave her post over potential health issues, the report said.
Sotomayor is a type 1 diabetic, and the average lifespan for women with the condition is 68 years, according to a 2015 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“What happens if she resigns and the nominee to replace her isn’t confirmed and the next president fills the vacancy?” a source said.
A former Senate Democratic aide told The Post it’s a fool’s errand to think Sotomayer would step aside and the Senate would be able to confirm a Democratic replacement in time.
“That’s insane. That’s not going to happen,” the source said. “If Sotomayor were to resign, [Dem Senate Leader] Chuck Schumer couldn’t get a confirmation done in time.”
Those involved in the talks also have acknowledged that it would be difficult to pull off during President Biden’s lame-duck session.
“We would have to have assurances from any shaky senator that they would back a nominee in the lame-duck,” a senior Democratic source told Politico.
“What do you do if she announces she’s going to step down and then [Democrat-turned-independent West Virginia Sen. Joe] Manchin doesn’t support her and then [Republican Sens.] Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski back off and say they’re not going to support a new nominee?” the source asked. “Do you just rescind [her] letter?”
Congress is also running up against a hard fiscal deadline of Dec. 20 to fund the government, leaving little breathing room for the pols to get much else done.
Any new justice would have to be appointed, confirmed and seated before the 119th Congress is sworn in Jan. 3.
Some of the senators in the “Beltway speculative conversation” would prefer to spend that short period of time confirming other lower-court judges to the federal bench, as Republicans have already telegraphed that their majority is ready to confirm a slate of new candidates to those positions, the report said.
If Sotomayor was to step down, the anonymous Democratic lawmakers were floating at least one moderate replacement for her: Washington, DC, Circuit Judge J. Michelle Childs, according to the outlet.
Childs has already won bipartisan support from Biden, who put her on his short list of potential jurists, and Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
“I can’t think of a better person for President Biden to consider for the Supreme Court than Michelle Childs,” Graham said of his fellow South Carolinian on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” in 2022.
“She has wide support in our state, she’s considered to be a fair-minded, highly gifted jurist. She’s one of the most decent people I’ve ever met,” he added.
Democrats started a whisper campaign last year to remove Sotomayor, which enraged some progressives who saw the effort as “ableist.”
Trump, 78, and a Senate Republican majority secured the Supreme Court’s conservative advantage in the final months of his first term by installing Justice Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Ginsburg died Sept. 18, 2020, at the age of 87, three years before she had planned to retire.
She battled life-threatening complications in her final years — including colon and pancreatic cancer — and even broke her ribs from falls in 2012 and 2018.
Reps for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) did not immediately respond to a Post request for comment Friday.
