{"id":2589381,"date":"2026-04-10T15:50:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T19:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/heres-how-sotomayor-and-jacksons-temper-tantrums-are-causing-headaches-for-kagan\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T15:53:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T19:53:42","slug":"heres-how-sotomayor-and-jacksons-temper-tantrums-are-causing-headaches-for-kagan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/heres-how-sotomayor-and-jacksons-temper-tantrums-are-causing-headaches-for-kagan\/","title":{"rendered":"Sotomayor, Jackson&#8217;s Outbursts Are Giving Kagan Headaches"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fheres-how-sotomayor-and-jacksons-temper-tantrums-are-causing-headaches-for-kagan%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2589381&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The piece discusses Sonia Sotomayor\u2019s recent remarks at a University of Kansas Law School event, where she reportedly directed a veiled personal attack at Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and places this in the context of growing tensions among the Supreme Court\u2019s liberal justices as they confront a conservative majority. It contrasts Sotomayor\u2019s approach with Justice Elena Kagan\u2019s more conciliatory stance and notes how the court\u2019s current composition-with Kavanaugh and Barrett replacing Kennedy and Ginsburg-limits the influence of democratic-appointed justices.<\/p>\n<p>Key points:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Sotomayor allegedly attacked Kavanaugh personally during a talk, referencing his background while criticizing his concurrence on a case about an interim injunction related to immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Kavanaugh defended the court\u2019s decision, suggesting the challengers may lack standing and observing that legal processes in such matters are usually brief for those legally in the country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Sotomayor\u2019s dissent accused the majority of misusing the interim docket and implied it allowed broad government power, including treating people who appear Latino harshly.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The remarks included a personal jab about Kavanaugh\u2019s upbringing, which the piece highlights as a rare direct personal attack among justices.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The article notes similar sharp rhetoric from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson against conservative decisions, framing it as part of a broader pattern among liberal justices.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; It contrasts this with Justice Kagan,who has generally avoided aggressive language toward Republican appointees and has sought to build coalitions to influence outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The piece argues that the Democratic justices are operating with fewer votes to sway major cases,contributing to their frustration and the increased tendency toward heated rhetoric.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The author of the piece is Shawn Fleetwood, a staff writer for The Federalist.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has been receiving a great deal of attention lately &mdash; and the reason has likely got fellow Justice Elena Kagan banging her head against the wall. <\/p>\n<p>Sotomayor is raising eyebrows with remarks she gave at a University of Kansas School of Law event earlier this week. While it&rsquo;s not uncommon for the justices to appear at such venues to speak to the public, what <em>is<\/em> uncommon is for the justices to use them as forums to levy personal attacks against their Supreme Court colleagues.<\/p>\n<p>Which is exactly what Sotomayor reportedly did.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.md\/9Qowx#selection-1733.202-1733.236\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bloomberg Law<\/a>, the Obama appointee took a veiled shot at Justice Brett Kavanaugh over a concurrence he authored in a case before the court&rsquo;s emergency or &ldquo;interim&rdquo; docket last year. In a 6-3 <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/09\/09\/scotus-ice-ruling-is-the-latest-embarrassment-for-rogue-lower-courts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">decision<\/a> along ideological lines, the high court paused a Biden-appointed judge&rsquo;s injunction hamstringing ICE&rsquo;s deportation operations in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>Kavanaugh <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/24pdf\/25a169_5h25.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">defended<\/a> the court&rsquo;s decision in his concurrence, writing that the policy&rsquo;s challengers &ldquo;likely lack Article III standing to seek a broad injunction restricting immigration officers from making these investigative stops.&rdquo; He further acknowledged the unlawfulness of illegal immigration and noted in part that, &ldquo;as for stops of those individuals who are legally in the country, the questioning in those circumstances is typically brief, and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U.S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Writing for the dissent, Sotomayor accused the majority of &ldquo;grave[ly[ misus[ing]&rdquo; the court&rsquo;s interim docket by granting the Trump administration&rsquo;s applications for relief from leftists&rsquo; <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/judicial-coup\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">judicial coup<\/a>. She also outlandishly claimed that the court&rsquo;s decision endorsed the idea that the federal government can arbitrarily &ldquo;seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/shapiro-debunking-the-15-minimum-wage\/\" title=\"SHAPIRO: Debunking The  Minimum Wage\">low wage job<\/a>.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>While addressing Kavanaugh&rsquo;s concurrence during her Kansas Law School appearance, Sotomayor took the rare step of lobbing a personal attack against her colleague and his upbringing. Though apparently not naming the Trump appointee, she reportedly said, &ldquo;I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these are only temporary stops. &hellip; This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn&rsquo;t really know any person who works by the hour.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>So much for that &ldquo;the nine of us are now a family&rdquo; line she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZuZxIs48uXc&amp;t=29s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">parroted<\/a> after Kavanaugh&rsquo;s brutal Senate confirmation.<\/p>\n<p>But Sotomayor is hardly the only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/nolte-npr-story-about-neil-gorsuch-refusing-to-wear-mask-debunked-as-fake-news\/\" title=\"Nolte: NPR Story About Neil Gorsuch Refusing to Wear Mask Debunked as Fake News\">left-wing justice<\/a> to allow her frustrations with the court&rsquo;s originalist decisions to spill over into personal attacks. <\/p>\n<p>Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has been well-known for chucking verbal hand grenades at her conservative colleagues and their decisions since joining the bench. <\/p>\n<p>The Biden appointee openly <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/07\/11\/kbj-keeps-showing-america-why-she-doesnt-belong-on-scotus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lambasted<\/a> the court&rsquo;s rulings last year as an &ldquo;existential threat to the rule of law.&rdquo; This type of rhetoric has also translated into her opinions. In an interim docket case involving the Trump administration last year, she authored a <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >solo dissent effectively accusing<\/a> her Republican-appointed colleagues of abandoning all proper jurisprudence in order to bend over backward for the government.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist,&rdquo; Jackson <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/11\/04\/justice-jackson-is-the-supreme-courts-mean-girl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wrote<\/a> at the time. &ldquo;Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Where all of this ties back to Kagan is that, unlike her fellow Democrat appointees, the former solicitor general has generally refrained from being overly aggressive with her Republican-appointed colleagues. In fact, she has <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/11\/04\/justice-jackson-is-the-supreme-courts-mean-girl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reportedly<\/a> sought to foster cordial relations with them since arriving at the high court as a means of finding areas of compromise that could ultimately limit the scope of an otherwise originalist opinion or potentially alter the outcome of a case altogether. <\/p>\n<p>This reported strategy hit a road bump in 2018, however, when President Trump replaced retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, a purported moderate, with the more reliably originalist Kavanaugh. Kagan&rsquo;s task got even more insurmountable when fellow leftist Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away in 2020 and was replaced by Amy Coney Barrett, a move that expanded the court&rsquo;s conservative majority from 5-4 to 6-3.<\/p>\n<p>Not only is there no wayward Kennedy for Kagan to try and sway in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/supreme-court-will-hear-boston-marathon-bomber-execution-case\/\" title=\"Supreme Court Will Hear Boston Marathon Bomber Execution ...\">high-profile cases<\/a>, but she must now persuade at least two Republican appointees in order to achieve her desired outcome. <\/p>\n<p>All of this is further compounded by Sotomayor&rsquo;s and Jackson&rsquo;s outbursts at the court&rsquo;s Republican appointees. While the strategic Kagan attempts to find ways to limit originalist outcomes, her fellow leftists seem hellbent on needlessly making reaching her objective more challenging than it already is.<\/p>\n<p>The unfortunate reality for the three Democrat musketeers is that they lack the numbers to make the difference in most major cases before the court. This seems to be why Sotomayor and Jackson are lashing out in the way that they are. For the first time in a long time, their side is on the losing end, and they simply can&rsquo;t stand it.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics and RealClearHealth. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sotomayor\u2019s KU remarks spark debate as Kagan frowns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":539,"featured_media":2589382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Sonia-Sotomayor.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[77539,10023,11028,11029,32275],"class_list":["post-2589381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-courtpolitics","tag-jackson","tag-kagan","tag-sotomayor","tag-supreme-court"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Sonia-Sotomayor.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/539"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2589381"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2589385,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589381\/revisions\/2589385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2589382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2589381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2589381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2589381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}