After more than a year of pressure from liberal legal activists who urged the appointment of President Bill Clinton to step aside to give Vice President Joe Biden a chance to name a judge who could shape the country's legal landscape for decades, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has decided to step aside. The president certainly stands by Biden's promise to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court, according to the White House press secretary.
The resignation of Breyer is welcome news for many Democrats and left-leaning attorneys, but it is unlikely to have a big impact on the court. Republican appointees hold the majority on the high court's bench. Many legal scholars and various statistical studies showed that Breyer was the least liberal of the court's Democratic appointees, but he was always siding with the liberals.
The precise timing of Breyer's departure, first reported by NBC News, remained somewhat unclear Wednesday, but it appears to give Biden a relatively free hand to pick a justice who will satisfy Democrats. Democrats have time to push a nominee through the confirmation process and have her join the court before the next term opens. The uncertainty about whether Democrats will lose control of the Senate in the November elections is avoided by completing that process this year.
With sagging poll numbers, high inflation, a retreating stock market, and a series of key legislative defeats on Capitol Hill, a White House desperately in need of it has a shot at a political win with the expected installation of his replacement.
The court seems destined to be firmly in conservative control for the foreseeable future, despite the exit of Breyer, and will likely make politically momentous decisions in the coming months.
The Supreme Court heard arguments last month on a case out of Mississippi that could have a significant impact on abortion rights since the Supreme Court found a constitutional right to abortion in 1973. The high court will take up two challenges to the use of race in college admissions. Affirmative action programs in education could be dealt a major blow before any Biden nominee makes it onto the high court bench.
Schumer stressed that Senate Democrats are prepared to move quickly on any nominee Biden puts forward.
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.
There is no obvious way for Republicans to block a Biden nominee. The Senate changed its rules in order to eliminate the filibuster for all presidential nominees. McConnell removed the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees in 2017, paving the way for Justice Neil Gorsuch's confirmation.
Lindsey Graham acknowledged Wednesday that the GOP doesn't have the power to stop Democrats from approving a Biden nominee.
Graham said that if all Democrats hang together, they will have the power to replace Justice Breyer without a Republican vote.
The D.C. Circuit Judge was a Harvard Law School graduate who was a clerk for Breyer. She joined the D.C. Circuit only last June, after previously serving as a federal district court judge in Washington.
Jackson was confirmed last June with the votes of all 50 Democrats plus three Republicans.
Jackson has been on the appeals court for seven months and has seen a number of significant cases. Jackson was a part of the unanimous ruling from the D.C. Circuit panel. The Supreme Court turned down Trump's attempt to put it on ice.
Jackson was on a panel that heard the long-running lawsuit by Trump to block his accounting firm, Mazars USA, from delivering financial records subpoenaed by a House committee. The panel seemed inclined to support the House's position but raised questions about the scope of the subpoena.
California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger is 45 years old, and a federal district court judge in South Carolina is 55.
Childs is supported by the highest-ranking Black lawmaker in the House, Majority Whip Jim Clyburn. In an interview with POLITICO, Clyburn said that Childs has all the answers.
President Biden made it clear that he was looking for a diverse background and experience, and he referred to the fact that he was a public-school person.
Clyburn said that he had not spoken to the White House on Wednesday but that his preference had been made clear to the administration.
The kind of person I had in mind when I broached the subject with President Biden way back in the campaign wasMichelle Childs.
Until Wednesday, he was adamant that he wouldn't step off the court. He published a book that appeared to be a riposte to what he viewed as efforts to politicize the court by implementing reforms that would increase the number of justices or do away with the current lifetime tenure for justices.
I didn't retire because I had decided on balance, according to an interview I did with Fox News Sunday.
In an interview that was part of a book tour last year, he said that he did not intend to die on the court, but he refused to discuss the timing of his possible departure.
The death of liberal icon and fellow Clinton appointee Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020 fueled the drumbeat from the left for Justice Breyer to step down. The death of Ginsburg gave Trump the chance to appoint a third justice to the court. McConnell's vow to block any Biden nominee if the GOP wins control of the Senate in this year's midterm elections also increased the pressure on Democrats to make room for a successor after 27 years on the high court.
Laura Barr contributed to the report.
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