The Embarrassingly Weak Case For Sonia Sotomayor To Stick It Out
Even when it's made with purpose, it unravels quickly.
I’ve written only glancingly about whether Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor should retire this summer, pending confirmation of her successor. (Spoiler: I believe she should.)
The main reason I haven’t emphasized it more is a bit self-indulgent: The case is pretty obvious, much like the case against repeatedly bonking your head into a brick wall, and others have already made it well. Why rewrite what has already published, when I could simply share his piece?
If I had an assignment budget, I’d look for a convert—someone who’d discouraged Ruth Bader Ginsburg from retiring back in 2013, or criticized those of us who encouraged her to retire, to write about their regret, and why Sotomayor shouldn’t repeat RBG’s mistake.
Instead, the discourse took a different turn. Sotomayor is surrounded by less of a personality cult than RBG was, and some of her devotees are presumably chastened by how Ginsburg’s story ended. Nevertheless, a set of loud and influential voices has piped up to make the same bad arguments we heard in 2013—this time for ring fencing Sotomayor, and to cheer for her to remain a justice as long as possible.
Below I reimagine what these defenses would look like if they were good, or on point. It turns out that even when you steel-man the Leave Sotomayor Alone argument, it’s still bad.