A presidential election is looming. Control of the Senate is uncertain. The window may be closing for the Democratic Party to replace the oldest Supreme Court justice nominated by a Democratic president.

Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, remembers how this story went last time, and hes begging for a different ending.

Sotomayor has been an outstanding justice, he said. But the Ruth Bader Ginsburg precedent ought to be extremely sobering. The cost of her failing to be replaced by a Democratic president with a Democratic Senate would be catastrophic.

At 69, Sonia Sotomayor is the oldest justice on the Supreme Court to have been picked by a Democrat. And now, Democrats may be about to lose the Senate, White House or both. But on the left, there is little open debate about whether she should retire.

The relative silence recalls the almost total lack of pressure on Ginsburg to retire exactly one decade ago. Ginsburg, seemingly betting she would outlive a Republican-held Senate and then Donald Trumps presidency, died of pancreatic cancer at age 87, just weeks before Joe Biden won the 2020 election. When Trump nominated her replacement, Amy Coney Barrett, and she was confirmed on Oct. 26, he cemented the 6-3 conservative majority that then took less than two years to fully overturn Roe v. Wade, among other seismic jurisprudential shifts.

Fearing a repeat of history, a handful of people who were critical of Ginsburgs judgment, are wearily reprising their warnings including Lucas Powe Jr. , a Supreme Court historian at the University of Texas at Austin.

I would love to see Sotomayor retire, Powe said. I would love to trade her for a 50-year-old justice.

Outside of a handful of commentators and journalists , though, few others are eager for Sotomayor to go. Her fierce dissents and willingness to speak sharply about her frustration with the conservative majority have made her one of the most admired voices on the left. She is also the first and only Latina on the court, a milestone Democrats are wary of sullying by pressuring her to step down.

Sotomayor is still youthful by the skewed standards of the Supreme Court. The average retirement age for recent justices is in the 80s, and since 1970, the average tenure has lasted about 28 years. When proponents of court reform propose mandatory term limits, they usually suggest a maximum tenure of 18 years. Sotomayor, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009, has served on the court for only 15 years.

The current average age on the Supreme Court is 63, and working at such a relentless pace at almost 70 isnt what I expected, she said at a public appearance in January. What choice do you have but to fight the good fight? You cant throw up your hands and walk away. Thats an abdication. Thats giving up.

Although she took the unusual step of traveling with a medic in 2018 a precaution possibly related to her Type 1 diabetes its not clear whether she was dealing with a serious health concern.

And the fact that she is younger than Justices Clarence Thomas, 75, and Samuel Alito, who is about to turn 74 two conservatives who, naturally, face no political pressure to retire under Biden breeds resentment around calls for her to step down while they remain.

Sotomayor is probably thinking, I can outlive a Trump presidency, Powe said.

She may also be sensitive to the perception that she is timing her retirement for partisan purposes, he added. She and Barrett are in the midst of a publicity tour to promote the concept of civility.

But there is a nightmare scenario for Democrats in which Trump would get to appoint his fourth ultraconservative justice if the Democratic Senate does not act now. Today, Democrats have a 51-49 majority in the Senate one more vote than they had two years ago, when they successfully confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace Justice Stephen Breyer, who retired at age 83.