Stephen Breyer gifted the chance for a liberal successor -- when will he take it?

[DonViejo]

By Joan Biskupic, CNN legal analyst & Supreme Court biographer

Updated 8:00 AM ET, Sun January 10, 2021

(CNN) - A new Democratic-controlled Senate boosts the chances Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, 82, would retire this year and offer new President Joe Biden an early opportunity to put his imprint on America's high court.

Breyer, who before becoming a judge was chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, knows better than most how last week's surprise Georgia election has transformed the prospects for Biden to fulfill a progressive agenda related to the judiciary.

The Supreme Court is controlled by a 6-3 conservative-liberal majority. So replacing Breyer, currently the eldest justice, with another liberal would not alter the 6-3 dynamic or diminish the force of the three justices President Donald Trump installed on the right wing.

Still, a Biden choice would enhance the diversity and youth of the bench and open a new chapter for justices who have the last word on issues from abortion and LGBTQ rights, religious liberties and racial remedies, to federal power and corporate regulation.

President-elect Biden has vowed to name the first Black woman to the bench. When he initially made the pledge during a February 2020 debate in Charleston, he said, "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."

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https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/10/politics/stephen-breyer-biden-supreme-court/index.html

[KayF]

1. i just posted a thread about flaws in our system

here's another one, this bizarre game of betting on how long judges will live.

[still_one]

2. Yes, but I think he will stay through just this year to rule on cases such as Roe, and cases

involving the attack on our Capital, which include if a president can pardon himself

[Celerity]

3. Leondra Kruger FTW

Breyer needs to retire sometime before summer 2022, as there is a chance, and not a small one, that we can lose the Senate in 2022.

We have 4 seats at risk (in order of risk: GA, NV, NH, AZ) and really only 3 chances to flip from R to D (the 2 open seats in PA and NC, plus the less likely WI seat held now by the RWNJ and hack dullard, Ron Johnson) FL will be much harder, and the rest are near locks for the Rethugs. Dem POTUS's first midterms have been disastrous for us lately (1994 and 2010). The House is at real risk too, probably more than the Senate, as atm, it only take a net 5 D to R flips to give it to the Rethugs (we lost a net 63 House seats and a net 7 Senate seats from post 2008 to post 2010).