Democratic senator makes shocking statement about Obama-appointed Justice Sotomayor

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the oldest Democratic-appointed Supreme Court justice, has received calls from several left-liberal activists to step down from the Supreme Court so she doesn’t die in office.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) made some of the strongest comments approaching saying what has been rumored as a push to force Sotomayor out of her chambers to give President Joe Biden an opportunity to appoint another Supreme Court justice. In an interview with NBC News, he cautioned her to “weigh the competing factors.”

“I’m very respectful of Justice Sotomayor,” Blumenthal said. “I have great admiration for her. But I think she really has to weigh the competing factors. We should learn a lesson. And it’s not like there’s any mystery here about what the lesson should be. The old saying — graveyards are full of indispensable people, ourselves in [the Senate] included.”

Activists have pointed to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s death in September 2020, which led to then-President Donald Trump replacing her with Justice Amy Coney Barrett and shifting the court to a 6-3 conservative majority, as something they want to avoid seeing happen again.

He also said the justices should consider the larger interests of the court, but he emphasized that Sotomayor is “highly accomplished” and a “fully functioning justice right now.”

“Justices have to make their personal decisions about their health and their level of energy, but also to keep in mind the larger national and public interest in making sure that the court looks and thinks like America,” Blumenthal said.

Blumenthal and other Democrats have not openly called for Sotomayor, 69, to resign, but activists have begun to mount pressure for her to consider retiring under a Democratic president.

Earlier in President Joe Biden’s term, hard-left activists pressured Justice Stephen Breyer to retire to ensure the seat stayed liberal. In January 2022, Breyer, then 83, announced his retirement and was replaced by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Asked about efforts by hard-left activists calling for Sotomayor to resign, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it is “a decision for that justice to make.”

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“Again, it’s a personal decision,” Jean-Pierre said at a press briefing on Wednesday. “That is not something that we get involved in. But it is something for, obviously, any justice on the bench … they should be given the space and the freedom to make that decision. I don’t have anything else to say beyond that.”

Sotomayor was appointed in 2009 by then-President Barack Obama, becoming the first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court.