Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said on Tuesday that, despite her constitutional duty to express her opinions from the nation’s highest bench, she can’t do much to change the groundswell of feelings throughout the country.
In an appearance on “CBS Mornings” to promote her children’s book “Just Shine! How to Be a Better You,” Sotomayor was asked by co-host Gayle King whether she was concerned about America’s direction.
The question came a day after Sotomayor ripped a decision by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court to lift a restraining order on the Trump administration’s use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to conduct stops without reasonable suspicion. She called the act “another grave misuse” of the court’s majority docket and “unconscionably irreconcilable with our nation’s constitutional guarantees.”
But Sotomayor said on Tuesday that whether she was personally concerned or not did not matter, because it’s not up to her what issues made their way to the court.
“I’m a Supreme Court justice,” she told the hosts. “I get to decide individual cases. I get to speak my mind about them. In the end, I don’t change what exists. People change what they don’t like or they support what they do like. But either way, the power of change is in people.”
Sotomayor wouldn’t opine further on the case beyond her Monday dissent since it’s still pending, though she noted her opinion laid out “why I believe it’s unconstitutional.”
She then explained that her new book is focused on making sure kids know they are capable of changing the world themselves.
“We’ve really messed up the world, haven’t we?” Sotomayor asked. “We have two world wars going. Regional difficulties, health, education, environmental problems — the world is filled with difficulties. Who’s going to change that if we’re not?”
