Justice Sonia Sotomayor says she tries to look for the good in her conservative Supreme Court colleagues despite not agreeing with them on much.
During an interview last week on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” to promote her new book, “Just Shine! How to Be a Better You,” Justice Sotomayor said her mother taught her to look for the best in people.
“That was the lesson that moment gave me, and it’s one I look for in my colleagues,” she said.
“I don’t agree with them much. At least not with the majority. And they can be really frustrating. And there are moments when I want to scurry out of the room. But I don’t. And what I look for to maintain our collegiality is the good in them,” she said.
Justice Sotomayor is one of three Democratic appointees to the bench with the six GOP-appointed majority. President Obama nominated her in 2009.
Last week, Justice Sotomayor and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was appointed by President Trump in 2020, made comments during separate interviews appearing to agree on one topic: the 22nd Amendment.
They shot down questions of the 22nd Amendment providing Mr. Trump with any wiggle room to hold the presidency beyond his current term.
The president has at times teased another run, with his website selling Trump 2028 hats.
Justice Barrett told Fox News that it was true the 22nd Amendment limits the president’s tenure to two terms.
“That’s what the amendment says, right?” Justice Barrett told Fox News “Special Report” host Bret Baier. “After FDR had four terms, that’s what that amendment says.”
Justice Sotomayor pushed back on any argument of Mr. Trump running for a third term, also citing the 22nd Amendment, during an interview with ABC News’ “The View.”
“The Constitution is settled law. No one has tried to challenge that,” Justice Sotomayor said. “But it is in the Constitution, and one should understand that there’s nothing that is the greater law in the United States than the Constitution of the United States.”
Her new book, for children, came out Sept. 9.
The court has been on summer recess since July and returns for the 2025-2026 term in October.
