While Barack Obama was President, there were calls for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg to retire so that she could be replaced with a younger left-leaning judge. Those calls were ignored and Ginsburg died while Republicans were in control. She was replaced with far-right Conservative Amy Coney-Barrett.
During a recent conversations with MSNBC's Sahil Kapur, Richard Blumenthal talked about the idea of Sonia Sotomayor, another left-leaning judge to retire. Despite her only being 69 years old, the Connecticut Democrat feels that the chance of her being replaced by a Conservative judge is too great.
Blumenthal told Kapur, "I’m very respectful of Justice Sotomayor. 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 this body included."
The Senator continued, "All the people in the liberal legal community are putting hurting Sonia’s feelings ahead of the prospect of a 7-2 court. Insane. So they don’t say anything about her retiring when they all think she should."
While Blumenthal's fear is understandable, it might also be somewhat misplaced here, especially since Justice Sotomayor is nearly 10 years younger than he his.