Justice Sotomayor Opens Up About Her Colleagues

Justice Sotomayor is on a speaking tour. In a series of public remarks, she has offered some striking comments about her colleagues.

On Wednesday, she spoke in Lawrence, Kansas about Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo.

“I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these are only temporary stops,” Sotomayor said, referencing a concurrence written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, during an event Tuesday hosted by the University of Kansas School of Law. “This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.” . . .

“Those hours that they took you away, nobody’s paying that person,” she said. “And that makes a difference between a meal for him and his kids that night and maybe just cold supper.” . . .

Why on earth would she drag Justice Kavanaugh’s parents into this? President Trump was recently castigated for saying that Justices Gorsuch’s and Barrett’s families should be ashamed of them. Here, Justice Sotomayor is shaming Justice Kavanaugh because his parents were “professionals.” Has Justice Sotomayor ever googled “Martha Kavanaugh”? Mrs. Kavanaugh taught history at a public school. I suppose being a teacher is a “professional.” Both of Justice Kavanaugh’s parents attended law school while raising their son. That should be admirable, right? But Justice Sotomayor just assumes they have white privilege.

As for the claim that Justice Kavanaugh “doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour,” that claim is demonstrably false. Many of the employees at the Supreme Court earn an hourly wage. Does Kavanaugh know none of them? We know from the confirmation process that at one of his high school friends worked at a grocery store. Moreover, Justice Kavanaugh has long volunteered to hand out meals to homeless people in the District of Columbia. These individuals likely earn an hourly wage, if that. But why make this claim at all? This was certainly on Justice Sotomayor’s mind for some time, and she felt compelled to say it aloud.

Sotomayor continued:

“Life experiences teach you to think more broadly and to see things others may not,” Sotomayor said. “And when I have a moment where I can express that on behalf of people who have no other voice, then I’m being given a very rare privilege.”

This comment about “life experiences” harkens back to her “Wise Latina” speech. I would encourage you to read Ed Whelan’s recent Confirmation Tales post on the topic. Sotomayor gave this speech many times, and certainly believes it. I suppose a “Wise Latina,” with the richness of her experiences, gains insights on the meaning of the Fourth Amendment that the son of two white lawyers lacks.

Justice Kavanaugh’s parents routinely attend Court sessions. I hope Justice Sotomayor apologizes for this remark.

Why would Justice Sotomayor say something like this to publicly shame her colleague? The answer, I think, would be revealed during remarks on Thursday at the University of Alabama.

“I dare say that with virtually all of them, I certainly have a civil relationship. And with many of them, I think I dare say that I have a friendship,”

Virtually? That means less than all. There are apparently some Justices that she does not have a “civil relationship” with. There are only eight other Justices. How many is “virtually all”? Seven? Six? She is friends with many. That would seem to be a majority, so perhaps five? So she is friends with five, and has a civil relationship with six or seven? Is that where are? The fact that Justice Sotomayor is taking public shots at Justice Kavanaugh suggests their relationship is not on the “sunrise side of the mountain.”

Who else doesn’t make the cut? I think back to the kerfuffle from 2022 when Justice Gorsuch refused to wear a mask and Justice Sotomayor was apparently troubled. Gorsuch and Sotomayor issued a joint statement saying “While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends.” Is that no longer true? Are they no longer friends? With the benefit of hindsight, that statement seems as sincere as hostages reading a script with a gun pointed to their head.

Justice Sotomayor also blamed her conservative colleagues for the shadow docket emergency:

The Supreme Court has itself to blame for the flood of emergency appeals it’s now receiving, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Thursday.

“We’ve done it to ourselves,” Sotomayor said during an appearance at the University of Alabama Law School. “The newspapers are filled with reports about how many emergency motions we are receiving. It’s unprecedented in the court’s history.”

Is Justice Sotomayor okay? I follow the Supreme Court very closely. Too closely, maybe. But this level of obsession allows me to notice when things change. And my spider senses are tingling with Justice Sotomayor. Something seems very off this term, much more than usual. There was a recent red flag during oral argument in Trump v. Barbara.

Justice Sotomayor asked Cecilia Wang, counsel for the ACLU, about an apparently non-existent case:

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Ms. Wang, on the earlier answer you gave to Justice Gorsuch on the temporary sojourners’ cases, those were distinct cases, correct, where the parents had come to the U.S. and didn’t want to give citizenship to their kids, took them out immediately, correct?

MS. WANG: I’m sorry, Justice Sotomayor, I’m not sure which cases you’re referring to.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: All right. I’ll –I’ll –that, we can look it up.

And in at least three recent cases, Justice Sotomayor forgot her spot during the round-robin questioning and jumped in when it wasn’t her turn: Watson v. RNC, Enbridge Energy v. Nessel, and Wolford v. Lopez.

I suspect at some point, people will look at Justice Sotomayor, who did not step down during the Biden Administration, the same way that people look at Justice Ginsburg, who did not step down during the Obama Administration.