Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to Retire
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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer plans to retire at the end of the Court’s current term after serving for 27 years, providing President Biden his first opportunity to appoint a justice to the High Court.
Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, Breyer is joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan on the bench’s minority liberal wing. His retirement was first reported by NBC’s Pete Williams.
At 83, Breyer is the oldest justice on the court and has been pressured by Democrats and progressive groups to step down to allow Biden to install a replacement while his party maintains a narrow majority in the Senate, which must confirm his successor. The Senate can conduct the confirmation process prior to Breyer’s retirement at the end of the term. Majority Leader Schumer intends to take advantage of that option by holding confirmation votes before Breyer officially steps down, sources told CNN.
Biden has pledged to nominate a Black woman to succeed Breyer. Among the candidates likely to be in the running for the role are federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former Breyer law clerk, and Leondra Kruger, a justice on California’s Supreme Court. Breyer’s retirement will not upset the current six-to-three ideological balance on the bench.
While Biden has flirted with progressives’ petition to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court, creating a commission to explore the idea, which would allow Democratic policy priorities to go unobstructed by a conservative majority, Breyer has rejected such a proposal despite his left-leaning jurisprudence.
He gave a lecture in April in which he implored “those whose initial instincts may favor important structural or other similar institutional changes, such as forms of ‘court-packing'” to “think long and hard before embodying those changes in law.”
Breyer has staunchly defended the High Court’s independence from the other branches of government and its insulation, by design, from the political fray.
Breyer’s successor will replace Justice Amy Coney Barrett as the Court’s newest member. President Donald Trump appointed Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died of cancer in September, 2020 at 87 years old.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer responded to the development Wednesday: “President Biden’s nominee will receive a prompt hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and will be considered and confirmed by the full United States Senate with all deliberate speed,” MSNBC reported.
