Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she looks for the best in her conservative colleagues even when their views frustrate her, and cautioned that changes to legal precedent can have long-lasting consequences.
Speaking Tuesday on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," Sotomayor said a lesson from her mother guides her approach to colleagues on the bench. "She taught me to look for the best in people," Sotomayor said. "That was the lesson that moment gave me, and it’s one I look for in my colleagues."
Sotomayor, who was on Colbert's program to promote her children's book "Just Shine! How to Be a Better You," acknowledged deep differences with the court's conservative majority. "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.
Later the same day on ABC's "The View," Sotomayor addressed concerns about recent Supreme Court decisions, including the conservative 6-3 majority's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Asked by co-host Sunny Hostin about the broader implications of those rulings, Sotomayor warned of a ripple effect: "The price we pay is whatever is happening today, as I indicated, is going to affect a lot of people. But it affects your future. It affects the conduct of leaders in the future, because what we permit today is not going to be duplicated exactly tomorrow. It’s going to be something different."
She stressed that when precedent is changed, "we are changing the contours of a right that people thought they had," and that taking rights away in one instance can put other rights at greater risk later.
Sotomayor was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed to the Supreme Court in 2009. She is one of three current justices who were nominated by Democratic presidents on a court that has a conservative 6-3 majority. The court's recent rulings on abortion and other high-profile issues have heightened public attention to internal dynamics and the long-term effects of altering established precedent.
Sotomayor's comments reflect ongoing debates about the court's role and the balance between individual justices' views and institutional collegiality. She has frequently spoken about the importance of precedent and the practical consequences of landmark rulings, positioning those concerns alongside efforts to maintain professional relationships with colleagues whose legal philosophies diverge from her own.