The longest-serving judge on the Supreme Court plans to announce his resignation on Thursday. This allows President Joe Biden to fulfill his campaign promise and nominate an African American woman to succeed him.
US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring.
When Stephen Breyer was asked a few months ago whether he sometimes thought about retiring soon, the 83-year-old said: Such a decision is influenced by many factors. However, he hopes that he will not remain on the Supreme Court “until I die”.
Now Breyer, the longest-serving judge on the Supreme Court at just over 27, appears to have made a decision. The American media reported unanimously that the judge would announce his resignation on Thursday — perhaps even in the White House, alongside President Joe Biden. This did not want to comment on the speculation for the time being. It is up to each judge to announce the time of the resignation, he said only.
President Biden: “Every justice has the right and opportunity to decide…announce it on their own. There’s been no announcement from Justice Breyer. Let him make whatever statement he’s going to make. I’ll be happy to talk about it later .” #SCOTUS pic.twitter.com/vqUgFmCSnM
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 26, 2022
The only surprising thing about Breyer’s announcement is the timing. The judge has been under intense pressure to retire since Biden took office in January 2021 — in part because many Democrats are desperate to prevent the left wing of the Supreme Court from further losing influence. Left activists have not forgotten what happened after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The left-wing icon had hardly died in autumn 2020 at the age of 87 when the Republicans replaced her at high speed with the pronounced conservative lawyer Amy Coney Barrett. Since then, the right-wing camp on the Supreme Court has provided six of the nine seats.
Breyer will step down at the end of the current session in early summer, said Pete Williams, NBC’s generally well-informed court correspondent. There was no confirmation for the time being because the judge did not want to speak on Wednesday. A Fox News correspondent reported that he did not expect his intentions to resign to be known as early as Wednesday.
The judge, who owed his appointment to the US Supreme Court to Democratic President Bill Clinton, could also make his resignation dependent on the confirmation of his successor. Because Supreme Court justices have no term limits, they can choose when to retire.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is considered the favorite
In Washington, meanwhile, it was considered agreed that the pragmatic judge would be replaced by a woman, which could increase the number of female judges on the Supreme Court to four. During the 2020 election campaign, Biden had promised to nominate a black woman for the first time as soon as a seat on the Supreme Court became vacant. The president feels bound by this promise, his spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, without confirming that Breyer would step down.
Because the number of Afro-American judges is manageable, the first speculations about a Breyer successor on Wednesday kept coming up with the same names. Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has been administering justice at the influential Court of Appeals in the capital Washington since last year, is the crown favorite for the historic election. She was confirmed for this post by the Senate in June 2021 by a vote of 53 to 44; all Democrats and 3 Republicans voted for them. The 51-year-old has served as a federal judge since 2013 and was previously shortlisted for the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama.
Also in the running are Leondra Kruger, a 45-year-old California Supreme Court judge, and J. Michelle Childs, a federal judge in South Carolina. The 55-year-old was recently nominated by Biden for a post on the Washington Court of Appeals. Childs is assisted by Jim Clyburn, an old friend of the President. Clyburn represents South Carolina in the House of Representatives and is number three in the Democratic Party leadership.
Senate Majority Leader announced quick confirmation
Theoretically, Biden could also nominate an unorthodox candidate — Vice President Kamala Harris, for example. However, there are two reasons against such a choice. First, the White House said on Wednesday that Biden would nominate a female judge (and not a career changer). And secondly, the personnel must be confirmed by the Senate; However, the majority in the small chamber of Congress is so tight that Biden will refrain from experiments. Currently, the Democrats hold 50 of the 100 seats in the small chamber of Congress; on contentious issues, the presidential party relies on the casting vote of Harris, who presides over Senate sessions by virtue of her office.
The majority leader in the Senate, Democrat Chuck Schumer, announced in a first statement on Wednesday that he wanted to deal with the personnel as quickly as possible. The Republicans can put obstacles in the way of the Democrats; However, according to the Senate’s rules of the game, it is no longer possible to block judge nominations. The Republicans abolished the filibuster for such personal details five years ago.