Senate Judiciary Member Rachets Up Breyer Retirement Watch
Democrats spooked after Republicans rushed through right-wing nominee following Ruth Bader Ginsburg's passing
The efforts of nervous Democrats looking to nudge Justice Stephen Breyer off the Supreme Court and safely into retirement got a serious push Tuesday when a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee added his name to the chorus.
A growing number of Democrats are eager to see Breyer, 82, step away from his lifetime appointment on the high court while President Biden can name a successor — and Senate Democrats hold their slim majority and are in a position to confirm that successor.
Appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1994, Breyer is the oldest and most senior of the dwindling liberal wing on the court.
Democrats have been spooked since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — Clinton's other Supreme Court nominee — died last September just weeks before the November elections. Ginsburg died at 87 while remaining on the bench despite suffering a number of potentially life-threatening illnesses.
Rather than wait for the results of the election, then-president Donald Trump and the Republicans who then held the Senate majority hurried right-wing Amy Coney Barrett through to confirmation — just weeks before Biden defeated Trump for reelection.
So far, those speaking up have been largely more-junior progressives in the House, such as Reps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mondaire Jones — both of New York.
However, the fact that now Sen Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has voiced the same opinion in a national cable TV news interview adds significant legitimacy and weight to the endeavor to replace Breyer — even if Whitehouse seemed doubtful that any of it might actually move Breyer.
“Well, now would be the right time. And if I believed it would do any good to say that, then I’d probably say that,” said Whitehouse, a member of the committee which would actually hold hearings on any successor for Breyer. “But, you know, you get on the Supreme Court and you get those robes and you make your own decisions, and I don’t know that senators trying to tell you what to do actually makes that decision easier, rather than harder.”