Democratic senator suggests Sonia Sotomayor weigh 'competing factors' in decision to retire: 'Learn a lesson'

Some Democratic senators are warning Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to carefully "weigh the competing factors" as she faces calls from progressives to retire from the Court, and argued Democrats should learn a lesson from 2020.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told NBC News that Democrats should "learn a lesson," after former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away while on the bench in 2020, and former President Trump nominated Justice Amy Coney Barrett to replace her.

"I’m very respectful of Justice Sotomayor. I have great admiration for her. But I think she really has to weigh the competing factors," he said. "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."

Blumenthal praised Sotomayor and didn't appear to directly suggest she step down, but said she should consider public interest.

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He told NBC, "justices have to make their personal decisions about their health, and their level of energy, but also to keep in mind the larger national and public interest in making sure that the court looks and thinks like America."

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said that Ginsburg might have rethought her decision to remain on the court and expressed concerns over a bigger conservative majority.

"Run it to 7-2 and you go from a captured court to a full MAGA court," Whitehouse told NBC. "Certainly I think if Justice Ginsburg had it to do over again, she might have rethought her confidence in her own health."

Liberal journalists, such as former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, along with some law professors, have called on