OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
3:40 PM – Monday, November 11, 2024
As the Democrats still try to cling to power, a politician and CNN commentator proposed on Sunday that Kamala Harris, the failed presidential candidate, replace U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor before Trump enters his second term.
CNN commentator and former South Carolina state representative Bakari Sellers was determined that Democrats must increase pressure on Sotomayor, a 70-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes, to resign, despite her resistance.
Sellers is an attorney, political commentator, and politician. He served in the South Carolina House of Representatives for the 90th District from 2006 to 2014.
“[The Senate] can confirm in 10 weeks (see ACB [Amy Coney Barrett]). You have very good previously vetted candidates… Sri Srinivasan, Robert Wilkins, Michelle Childs, and yes, Kamala Harris (though she likely doesn’t get Manchin’s vote),” the pundit continued.
Up until the beginning of January, Democrats held control over both the Senate and the White House. Nevertheless, there is still uncertainty as to whether Harris, 60, would even be open to the idea of being a justice.
Although it’s not always the case, presidents frequently appoint individuals with real-world judicial experience to the nation’s highest court.
“I don’t want Justice Sotomayor to be another Ruth Bader Ginsburg in terms of staying too long,” Sellers told CNN.
“The possibility of Justice Sotomayor having to resign or retire in the next four years is extremely high,” he added.
As the most senior liberal member on the bench, Sotomayor has a lengthy history of health problems, including medical records showing that she has traveled with a medic in the past. Sotomayor has also expressed publicly a number of times that she is worn out from her rigorous workload at the Supreme Court.
However, a number of Sotomayor’s supporters disagreed with the CNN pundit’s opinion and assured that her place on the SCOTUS is still needed.
“This is no time to lose her important voice on the court. She just turned 70 and takes better care of herself than anyone I know,” a source close to Sotomayor told the Wall Street Journal.
There has been increasing pressure on Sotomayor for a while, even prior to the election on November 5th, as there are concerns that the Republican Party may retake the Senate. Republicans not only retook the White House but also the Senate this time, so if the GOP names a new justice in the next two years, Democrats fear that they will lose momentum.
It’s also unclear if Democrats will be able to retake the upper house in 2026.
Many people consider Sotomayor, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by then-President Obama in 2009, to be the most progressive justice on the court.
During heated oral debates, she has become one of the bench’s most vocal and occasionally impassioned voices. She questioned if the Supreme Court could “survive the stench” of reversing Roe, for instance, in late 2021.
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