U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Monday she feels daily “frustration” as conservative justices move the country to the ideological right.
In an appearance at the University of California, Berkely School of Law, Sotomayor was asked how she copes with the consistently conservative rulings from the court.
“Every loss truly traumatizes me,” but “I get up the next morning,” she said in response to the question, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. The crowd — about 1,300 students — applauded.
In her remarks, she criticized her “originalist colleagues” whom she said have come up with “new ways to interpret the Constitution,” changing rulings “that some of us believed were well established,” the Chronicle reported.
The 6-3 conservative court has had an eventful couple of terms, making its mark on some of the most consequential aspects of everyday life — from overturning the federal right to an abortion to ruling affirmative action in colleges unconstitutional.
The thought was that if they had to campaign and run for elections they’d be too swayed by political pressure to be impartial. As we’ve seen, having the Executive branch do it doesn’t prevent this if politics becomes hyper-partisan. This is part of why Washington was opposed to political parties even existing. I think history has proven him right.