The debate about Sonia Sotomayor is not about sexism. It’s more dire.
For the past few months there has been a stealth political campaign going on, the subject of which feels so unseemly that nearly every person publicly participating in the debate insists they would rather not be participating in it, and would, in fact, prefer the debate not be happening at all. The question: Should Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor voluntarily retire before the next presidential election? And, if your answer is yes, are you sexist? And, if your answer is no, and you support liberal jurisprudence, are you a fool? If you haven’t been following, the arguments — which have been laid forth by Josh Barro in the Atlantic, Nate Silver, Mehdi Hassan in the Guardian, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and others — amount to this: 1) Sotomayor, at 69, is already several years older than the median American retirement age; 2) The justice’s Type 1 diabetes might indicate a more complicated health map than that of a typical septuagenarian; 3) In the not-unlikely event that Donald Trump wins the presidential election, and Sotomayor has to leave the court during his next term, we can presume that his replacement nominee will turn the Supreme Court into a 7-2 conservative supermajority with repercussions for decades to come. In other words, Democrats might feel great about Sotomayor’s health and stamina now. But how much are they willing to bet that they’ll feel great about it in four or more years? (For what it’s worth, Barro et al. also make the case that a Democrat in the White House doesn’t ensure the safe passage of Sotomayor’s replacement to the high court, either: a flip of the Senate could result in a Merrick Garland redux, wherein a Republican majority refuses to confirm a Joe Biden nominee).
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