As Trump exerts power, US Supreme Court’s Sotomayor raises specter of a ‘king’

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By Andrew Chung

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in remarks made at a time when Donald Trump is seeking to exert expansive executive powers, emphasized the need for Americans to know the difference between a president and a king as she spoke on Tuesday about how to improve civics education.

Addressing an audience of law students, judges and others at New York Law School in Manhattan, Sotomayor raised concerns about gaps in knowledge among Americans about democratic institutions, individual rights and the rule of law. 

“Do we understand what the difference is between a king and a president?” Sotomayor asked. 

“I think if people understood these things from the beginning they would be more informed as to what would be important in a democracy in terms of what people can or should not do,” Sotomayor added.

Trump, since returning to office in January, has tested legal boundaries in pursuing numerous unilateral actions to reshape the federal government, crack down on immigration, end diversity programs, target perceived enemies and impose sweeping tariffs.

Sotomayor is one of the three liberal justices on a court that has a 6-3 conservative majority. She has frequently dissented in recent months as the court has sided with Trump’s administration in almost every case it has been called upon to review, allowing his policies to proceed while legal challenges to them continue. 

She did not mention Trump by name during her appearance. But her comments echoed a warning she issued in a dissent last year from the court’s landmark ruling in favor of Trump that declared for the first time that presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts while in office. 

That ruling was issued as Trump challenged a federal criminal case against him for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. The court’s conservative justices were in the majority and its liberal members in dissent.

“The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.

Some protests against Trump’s policies this year have embraced the slogan “No Kings.”

Trump’s far-reaching executive actions have provoked tension with the judiciary. Judges who have impeded his policies have been the target of harsh criticism from the president and his allies who have questioned their authority. 

In March, Trump urged the impeachment of a judge hearing a deportation dispute, and at times legal scholars questioned whether his administration’s pushback against judicial orders amounted to outright defiance.

Sotomayor, who has served on the court since 2009, on Tuesday said she placed a lot of hope in the next generation. 

Students, she said, “are our hope to fix the mistakes that we are making. And boy, are they big mistakes.”

“Think of everything that’s happening in the United States. And you have to pause and say we adults have really messed this up,” Sotomayor said. “My hope is that the students who participate in programs like this will figure out how to do a better job.”

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)