Despite acknowledging that she should not do so, on her current book tour United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor nevertheless waded into politicking, bashing both the Federal Government’s response to Hurricane María in Puerto Rico and exhorting Latino voters to go to the polls “to change this life for us Latinos.”

In separate interviews with Telemundo and Univision, Sotomayor’s partisan edge was evident. On its October 16 national evening newscast, Telemundo featured Sotomayor’s message as part of that network’s Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) campaign, currently being deployed in partnership with an array of politically liberal-aligned voter mobilization organizations (including Voto Latino, UnidosUS, Hispanic Federation and Mi Familia Vota).

JOSÉ DÍAZ-BALART, ANCHOR, TELEMUNDO: The apparent lack of enthusiasm worries many. That is why Justice Sonia Sotomayor sent a message, through our cameras, in order for our people to know that voting is the only way of guaranteeing our rights. SONIA SOTOMAYOR, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT: My message is that the person who does not vote is a person who does not love this country, nor his community. Voting is the most important thing, the biggest obligation, of being a citizen. The most important thing to change this life for us Latinos is to vote.

That same evening on Univision’s national evening newscast, Sotomayor was featured bashing the Federal Government’s massive response to Hurricane María in Puerto Rico. She even prefaced her criticism that “help…is not being received” by acknowledging she was wading into political matters.

ILIA CALDERÓN, ANCHOR, UNIVISION: Following the onslaught of Hurricane María, does the treatment Puerto Rico has received seem fair to you? SONIA SOTOMAYOR, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT: I am not supposed to speak about politics, but that question I will answer: no. Puerto Rico still needs a lot of help. The sadness of the island is her former beauty that we have to achieve again, but we need a lot of help to do it and it is not being received.

Evidently for Sotomayor, the fact that following Hurricane María Puerto Rico was the object of the largest disaster commodity federal response and the largest generator installation mission in U.S. history was not enough, nor was the fact that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development alone has allocated to Puerto Rico $20 billion in Community Development Block Grants, a figure more than twice the size of the U.S. Caribbean territory’s annual budget for its entire government.

At least Sotomayor was wise enough, during her interview with Univision, to remain diplomatic about fellow Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s recent arrival to the Court, saying that “Among colleagues there is always a welcome. He is a new member of our Court. We have to work with him and now we are beginning our new family. We work together, so let's let this time pass.”

Below is the complete transcript of the above-referenced segments, as aired during the October 16, 2018 editions of Noticiero Univisión and Noticias Telemundo.