‘Unpacking’ the Court: Why the Left Wants Sotomayor Gone
Ever since losing control of the Supreme Court to a nominally conservative majority, many of the same liberals who have brazenly called for “packing the court” are now just as brazenly seeking to unpack it. If ever there was proof that the Left views the Supreme Court as just another legislative body to lobby for their agenda, it’s their shameless efforts to pressure liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 69, to retire before the presidential election in November so President Joe Biden can nominate a younger—and equally or more liberal—replacement. According to a pair of March 27 articles in The Huffington Post and at AboveTheLaw.com, two leftist law professors are among the loudest voices calling for Sotomayor’s resignation. “I would love to see Sotomayor retire,” one of them, Lucas Powe Jr., a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said. “I would love to trade her for a 50-year-old justice.” That’s because the Left supports what I’ve dubbed “outcome-based adjudication” (akin to outcome-based education). They view an unelected Supreme Court majority—as few as five votes—as a superlegislature for enacting their radical agenda, most of which they can’t get through Congress. (The foremost example of that was the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in 2015 in which a 5-to-4 majority—including Sotomayor—by judicial fiat legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.) The Left’s outcome-based adjudication is also reflected in how Sotomayor and the two other current liberal justices, all appointed by Democratic presidents, vote in utterly predictable lockstep on all of the most controversial and consequential issues that come before the high court.
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