Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer to retire, giving Biden his first appointment
WASHINGTON — Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the Supreme Court’s 83-year-old liberal pragmatist, plans to retire this year, clearing the way for President Joe Biden to make his first appointment to the high court.
Breyer, a 1994 appointee of President Bill Clinton, is the senior member of the three-justice liberal bloc, and his retirement is unlikely to change the court’s ideological balance.
But it should allow Democrats to replace him with a younger and possibly more assertive progressive. The confirmation process is likely to dominate Democrats’ agenda in 2022.
“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,” said Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y.
Breyer’s plans were first reported Wednesday by NBC News. Court and White House officials had no comment.
Biden has pledged to appoint the first Black woman to the court, and the leading candidates are Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, 45.
Jackson, who serves as a federal appeals court judge in Washington was a Supreme Court clerk for Breyer in 1999 and 2000. In March of last year, Biden nominated her to serve on the U.S. court of appeals for the District of Columbia to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Last month, she joined
