Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to retire
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will retire at the end of the high court’s current term — setting the stage for President Biden to replace him with another liberal jurist, according to reports Wednesday.
Breyer, 83, is the oldest member of the Supreme Court and has been under increasing pressure from liberal Democrats to step down in recent months.
The court has a 6-3 conservative majority that includes three members nominated by President Donald Trump, who tapped Amy Coney Barrett for the seat held by liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Ginsburg died in September 2020, and Coney Barrett was confirmed by the Republican-controlled US Senate a month later in a party-line, 52-48 vote, just one week before the presidential election.
Biden said during his campaign for the White House that he would nominate a black woman if he got the chance.
“I’m looking forward to making sure there’s a black woman on the Supreme Court, to make sure we in fact get every representation,” he said on Feb. 25, 2020.
The leading contenders include Washington, DC, federal appeals court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, whom Biden elevated following her nomination to the federal bench by President Barack Obama.
The others include high-profile civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill and federal Judge Michelle Childs, whom Biden has nominated to be an appeals court judge.
Childs is also a favorite of Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), who made a crucial endorsement of Biden just before South Carolina’s presidential primary in 2020.
Biden, who was meeting with top CEOs at the White House in a bid to revive his stalled “Build Back Better” spending plan, declined to weigh in on Breyer’s retirement when reporters asked him for comment shortly after 1 pm.
“Every justice has the right and opportunity to decide what he or she is going to do and announce it on their own,” Biden said. “There has been no announcement from Justice Breyer. Let him make whatever statement he’s going to make and I’ll be happy to talk about it later.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki also said she had “no additional details or information to share” on Breyer’s reported move.
“It has always been the decision of any Supreme Court Justice if and when they decide to retire, and how they want to announce it, and that remains the case today,” she tweeted shortly after the news broke.
But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that Biden’s nominee to replace Breyer “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.”
The Senate is now split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, with Vice President Kamala Harris controlling the tie-breaking vote.
In a prepared statement, Schumer called Breyer “a model jurist” who “embodies the best qualities and highest ideals of American justice” and “has served his country with the highest possible distinction.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), former Judiciary Committee chairman, said, “Justice Breyer has always shown great respect for the institution and his colleagues, and I wish him well in the next phase of his life.
“As to his replacement: If all Democrats hang together – which I expect they will – they have the power to replace Justice Breyer in 2022 without one Republican vote in support,” Graham added.
“Elections have consequences, and that is most evident when it comes to fulfilling vacancies on the Supreme Court.”
Coney Barrett’s confirmation was engineered by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who infuriated Democrats in 2010 by blocking outgoing President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland, now US attorney general, to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on grounds that it was an election year.
McConnell, now the Senate minority leader, has vowed to block any Biden nominations to the Supreme Court in 2024 — and “wait and see” about 2023 — if the GOP regains control of the chamber in November.
McConnell spoke to reporters in Bowling Green, Ky., on Wednesday but declined to discuss Breyer’s reported retirement plans, according to CNN.
“Well, I’m afraid to put the cart before the horse,” he said.
“Justice Breyer has not made an official announcement and he’s entitled to do that whenever he chooses to and when he does that I’ll have a response to his long and distinguished career.”
The Supreme Court’s current term is scheduled to continue until the end of June, when it goes into recess for the summer.
Breyer was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton and has served there since 1994.
Like Ginsburg, he opted not to retire when Democrats last controlled the White House and the US Senate — which votes on Supreme Court nominees — during Obama’s presidency.
In July, he told CNN that he hadn’t decided when to retire, saying two reasons would force the move.
“Primarily, of course, health. Second, the court,” he said.
The following month, he told the New York Times that he was struggling with the decision.
“I don’t think I’m going to stay here ’til I die — I hope not,” he said.
Breyer wrote two major opinions in support of abortion rights on a court closely divided over the issue, and he laid out his growing discomfort with the death penalty in a series of dissenting opinions in recent years.
He is also known for elaborate, at times far-fetched, hypothetical questions to lawyers during oral arguments.
With Post wires
