Even John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett claim to be above partisan politics. But the retiring Stephen Breyer may be the last justice to actually believe it. ed_kilgore writes
Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden appear with Stephen Breyer after his nomination to SCOTUS by Bill Clinton. Photo: John Duricka/AP/Shutterstock Democrats everywhere were undoubtedly pleased to learn that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has reportedly decided to retire at the end of this term, giving President Biden an opportunity to make good on his campaign promise to appoint a Black woman to the Court.
In an expansive, two-hour lecture at Harvard Law School, Breyer bemoaned the common practice — by journalists, senators and others — of referring to justices by the presidents who appointed them and of describing the nine by their conservative or liberal approach to the law.“These are more than straws in the wind,” the 82-year-old Breyer said.
Certainly a lot has changed in politics and jurisprudence since Breyer was first appointed to the federal bench by Jimmy Carter in 1980. The contemporary practice of vetting judicial nominees for their “philosophies” as well as their qualifications, with the whole exercise closely monitored by the press, barely existed when Breyer came along; the process became much more invasive and exacting alongside the ideological and partisan polarization of the entire political system.
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