Sotomayor: 'Our founders were hell-bent on ensuring that we didn't have a monarchy' 

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed faith that court rulings will be respected during a Tuesday fireside chat, comments that come as President Trump and his allies have stepped up their attacks on the courts.

“Our founders were hell-bent on ensuring that we didn't have a monarchy. And the first way they thought of that was to give Congress the power of the purse, and because that's an incredible power,” Sotomayor said while speaking at an event at Florida's Miami Dade College. 

Sotomayor, one of the three sitting Supreme Court justices appointed by a Democratic president, did not name Trump during the 80-minute conversation and cautioned she was not “getting too much into that.” 

But her pointed comments on what she described as the court’s “soft power” come as the president and his allies condemn federal judges who have temporarily blocked various executive actions, raising concerns among some groups that the administration is setting the stage to not enforce the orders. 

“Court decisions stand. Whether one particular person chooses to abide by them or not, it doesn’t change the foundation that it’s still a court order that someone will respect at some point,” Sotomayor said.  

“That’s the faith I have in this system. And that other actors in the system, whether it's Congress or others, will follow the law, because it's what we all take an oath of office to do,” she continued. 

Sotomayor’s remarks, in conversation with Knight Foundation CEO Maribel Pérez Wadsworth, come a week after she condemned the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision at an event accepting a medal from the University of Louisville’s law school. 

“If we as a court go so much further ahead of people, our legitimacy is going to be questioned,” Sotomayor told the Kentucky audience.