“Elections have consequences,” former President Barack Hussein Obama once said.
And for Democrats who remember the results of the 2016 election — the three U.S. Supreme Court associate justices appointed by President Donald Trump — the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that struck down abortion laws across the country. helped overturn the election — and now worries about the outcome of Tuesday's election.
They fear President Trump will appoint more conservatives to the federal courts, including at least one more SCOTUS member.
Pro-abortion activists recall Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's refusal to retire during President Obama's second term, and Amy Coney, whose decision helped reverse Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson. It claims to have led to Judge Barrett's appointment.
So they're telling Obama-appointed Justice Sonia Sotomayor that it's over. They fear that outside mayors, who lead a 7-2 conservative majority in SCOTUS, will get sick or die during Trump's term.
Ginsberg's history
Ginsburg was suffering from cancer for the fourth time when President Trump was elected. As CNBC reported, she refused to retire but “hit back” at know-it-alls who said she should have retired during Obama's term in order to appoint a replacement.
“When a proposal like that is made, I ask questions,” she told National Public Radio's far-left pro-abortion advocate Nina Totenberg.
Who do you think the president could nominate that would pass a Republican Senate? Who do you like better than me on the court?
After all, remember that Republican senators blocked then-federal Judge Merrick Garland's elevation to the high court.
Still, when SCOTUS reversed Roe 6-3, major pro-abortion women were furious. In fact, “a range of emotions” is plaguing the crying sisterhood, Politico reported.
“It's certainly difficult for me to think about her work and her right now, but I also can't help but feel a certain amount of regret and anger these days,” he wrote in a New York Times legal editorial during his tenure. Dorothy Samuels, author of He has been on the editorial board of the same newspaper for 30 years. “This is very multi-layered because she was passionate about promoting equality for all. She figured out how to include women in the Constitution. Still, she gave us What we have received is a court that has long since revoked the equality judgment she was a part of.”
Samuels heard the same thing from former clerks and other members of Ginsburg's inner circle while researching her book several years before Ginsburg's death. “It was a very selfish act.”
“She took a gamble,'' said outspoken Stanford law professor Michele Dawber, who said Ginsburg clearly calculated that Hillary Clinton would come to the White House and appoint her successor. . “But she didn't just bet on herself. She gambled with the rights of my daughter and granddaughter. And unfortunately, that's her legacy. I think that's tragic. Masu.”
Sotomayor must go
Therefore, there are calls that Sotomayor, a 70-year-old diabetic who is currently accompanied by medical workers, must resign, a demand that will be heard in 2023. No one knows how many more conservative judges will be appointed to the lower courts, but their complexion will likely change. It has sustained the federal court system for decades.
Pro-abortion Democrats are in a panic.
After Trump's second victory, Politico reported, “This is a nail-biting moment for Democrats.”
Democratic senators have discussed the topic “many times this week.” The chat ends “with the recognition of two realities,” the website reported.
(1) This would be a risky play for a party figuring out how to deal with an already crowded lame-duck conference, and (2) No senator seems likely to volunteer to be the one to strangle himself. He announced this policy publicly (and privately) by urging Mr. Sotomayor to step down.
So instead, they will discuss it behind closed doors and encourage far-left media outlets to pressure Sotomayor to resign with anonymously sourced articles.
According to the website, senators are considering potential replacements, but even if Mayor Soto resigns, he cannot do so on the condition that Biden allows him to nominate a replacement.
If Mayor Soto were to resign, “she could do so with the condition that someone is appointed to replace her,” one Democratic senator told Playbook. “But she can't resign based on a specific person. What happens if she resigns, there's no confirmed candidate to replace her, and the next president fills the vacancy?”
Then there's the abbreviated timeline. Democrats need to convince her to retire immediately, and Biden must nominate a replacement, figure out a way to get enough senators on board, and work around any obstacles Republicans put in the way, ensuring that the full chamber is in place by the new Congress. would need to get votes. There is no room for mistakes or delays.
Should Alito and Thomas retire?
Pro-abortion advocates have urged Sotomayor to hang up his robes, raising the notion that there are some elderly members of the conservative majority.
The National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA) said, “Trump's victory will inevitably lead to speculation about what senior Supreme Court justices will do in the coming months and how parties will address vacancies on the high court.'' “It has increased to “.''
Two justices are older than Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, 76, and Samuel Alito, 74.
Continuation of NCJA:
Two members of the conservative legal movement told The Washington Post last month, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues, that neither judge is likely to resign during President Trump's term.
However, Trump's top legal adviser, Mike Davis, predicted Alito would retire, the NCJA observed. “Prediction: Justice Sam Alito is happily clearing the floor,” Davis wrote to X. Mr. Davis made headlines yesterday after he warned Special Counsel Jack Smith, the Justice Department prosecutor who is pursuing the case against Mr. Trump, that he would soon resign or be fired. , to “Lawyer Up.”
Continuation of NCJA:
The new vacancy would give Mr. Trump (who also appointed Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh during his first term) an outsize impression on the court. If at least two justices resign during his second term, he could boast of appointing a majority of the justices currently in office, more than any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Conversely, Davis may have told Alito to retire. In any case, given the treatment he has received recently, no one would be surprised if the judge retires.
In May, Trump-hating media outlets argued that Alito was an unethical and corrupt judge who was unable to govern fairly because conservative donors paid for his leave. But what's worse is that his wife is a patriot. During an argument with her neighbor after a fraudulent election in 2020, she hung an upside-down American flag at his home. Also, the Revolutionary War's “Appeal to Heaven” flag was flown at his beach house. Ominously, the New York Times noted that the flag was flown during a mostly peaceful protest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Alito may think the job isn't worth the trouble and that with President Trump in office, now is the right time to retire.
Will it work?
That possibility aside, abortion advocates who criticized Ginsburg for not retiring during Obama's term forgot one thing. Even if she had retired, Republican senators could have blocked her replacement, just as they blocked Garland's elevation to the court. Similarly, the laws, court decisions, and public policies of Roe and others on the far left would have been doomed had she been removed. President Trump appointed two key justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, long before the court handed down its Dobbs decision in 2022.
Therefore, even if Ginsburg had been replaced, the ruling would have been 5-4 instead of 6-3.