From her perch on the Supreme Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor has leveraged her position to draw huge crowds as a guest speaker at public universities… and she knows it.
Sotomayor’s staff has strongarmed the host schools into buying hundreds — sometimes thousands — of her books, and Sotomayor has made money from these sales.
All in all, Sotomayor makes $285,400 per year as her court salary. However, since joining the court in 2009, she’s earned $3.7 million from her memoir and children’s books.
Details of those events, largely out of public view, were obtained by The Associated Press through more than 100 open records requests to public institutions.
In a statement to the AP, the Supreme Court said that Sotomayor’s staff simply wanted the hosts to stockpile enough copies for her to sign.
“When (Sotomayor) is invited to participate in a book program, Chambers staff recommends the number of books (for an organization to order) based on the size of the audience so as not to disappoint attendees who may anticipate books being available at an event,” the court said.
However, Sotomayor’s staffers were often the ones to pitch the idea of book signings.
In 2019, as Sotomayor traveled the country to promote her new children’s book, “Just Ask!,” library and community college officials in Portland, Oregon, jumped at the chance to host an event.
They put in long hours and accommodated the shifting requests of Sotomayor’s court staff. Then, as the public cost of hosting the event soared almost tenfold, a Sotomayor aide emailed with a different, urgent concern: She said the organizers did not buy enough copies of the justice’s book, which attendees had to purchase or have on hand in order to meet Sotomayor after her talk.
“For an event with 1,000 people and they have to have a copy of Just Ask to get into the line, 250 books is definitely not enough,” the aide, Anh Le, wrote staffers at the Multnomah County Library. “Families purchase multiples and people will be upset if they are unable to get in line because the book required is sold out.”
Costs associated with the event spiked to more than $20,000 by the time it was held in September 2019. Emails show Supreme Court staff, including Le, a longtime legal assistant to the justice and graduate of the community college, closely controlled the run-of-show, requesting the largest venue possible, while managing minor details such as the placement of stairs or approving the TV camera angles that would be used.
“Can you please show me the screen where people can purchase books?” Le wrote library staffers as they prepared to make the tickets available. “Are you just placing Just Ask … on the portal or all of the Justice’s books.”
When the free tickets were quickly snapped up, she asked library officials to publicize that those who could not get tickets could still meet the justice if they purchased a book.
“Please also let them know that they can attend the signing line to meet the Justice even if they are not able to attend the event,” Le wrote in an Aug. 26, 2019, email.
A day later, she followed with another email, concerned that not enough of the people who got tickets had also purchased a book. Records indicate that the roughly 550 free tickets made available to the public (the rest were reserved for VIP guests) resulted in the advance purchase of only 28 books.
“Is there a reminder going out that people need to purchase a book at the event or bring a book to get into the signing line?” Le wrote. “Most of the registrants did not purchase books.”
Still, when she found out event organizers had only purchased 250 copies of Sotomayor’s book, she sent an email telling library officials that the quantity was “definitely not enough.”
A library staffer emailed back, “Maybe you should communicate with (Sotomayor’s publisher) and the book sellers about your concerns?”
It was not an isolated push. As Sotomayor prepared for commencement weekend at the University of California, Davis law school, her staff pitched officials there on buying copies of signed books in connection with the event. Before a visit to the University of Wisconsin, the staff suggested a book signing.
At Clemson University in South Carolina, school officials offered to buy 60 signed copies before a 2017 appearance; Sotomayor’s staff noted that most schools order around 400. Michigan State University asked Sotomayor to come to campus and in 2018 spent more than $100,000 on copies of her memoir, “My Beloved World,” to distribute to incoming first-year students. The books were shipped to the Supreme Court, where copies were taken to her chambers by court workers and signed by her before being sent to the school.
In its statement to the AP, the Supreme Court said judicial ethics guidance “suggests that a judge may sign copies of his or her work, which may also be available for sale” so long as there is “no requirement or suggestion that attendees are required to purchase books in order to attend.”
“Justice Sotomayor’s Judicial Assistant has worked with the Justice’s publisher to ensure compliance with these standards, and at no time have attendees been required to buy a book in order to attend an event,” the court statement read. “Asking whether attendees were reminded that they must either buy or bring a book in order to enter a signing line at an event would in no way conflict with the standard outlined above.”
The court added in its statement that it works with the justices and their staff to ensure they are “complying with judicial ethics guidance for such visits.”
In the lower federal courts, judges are instructed not to “lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance” their “private interests.” However, the Supreme Court justices enjoy significantly looser rules. The Supreme Court does not have a formal code of conduct, leaving the nine justices to largely write and enforce their own rules. In other words, Sotomayor is allowed to do what other government officials cannot.
Still, some conservatives — like Michael Luttig — have accused Sotomayor of damaging the court’s reputation.
“I have never believed that Supreme Court justices should write books to supplement their judicial incomes,” said Luttig, who was considered for the Supreme Court by President George W. Bush. “The potential for promotion of the individual justices over the Court at the reputational expense of the Court as an institution, as well as the appearance of such, is unavoidable.”
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.