Breyer authored essential rulings upholding abortion rights and healthcare entry, helped advance LGBT rights and questioned the constitutionality of the dying penalty however usually discovered himself in dissent on a courtroom that has moved rightward and presently has a 6-3 conservative majority.
He was appointed to the Supreme Courtroom by Democratic President Invoice Clinton in 1994. Solely conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, considered one of two Black males ever on the excessive courtroom, has served longer among the many present justices, becoming a member of it in 1991.
Biden in the course of the 2020 presidential election marketing campaign pledged to appoint a Black lady to fill any Supreme Courtroom emptiness, which might be a historic first. Biden’s fellow Democrats maintain a razor-thin majority within the U.S. Senate, which beneath the Structure will get to substantiate Supreme Courtroom nominees.
Potential Biden nominees embrace Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former Breyer legislation clerk who was confirmed by the Senate final June to serve on an influential U.S. appellate courtroom, and Leondra Kruger who serves on the California Supreme Courtroom.
Thurgood Marshall is the one different Black justice in U.S. historical past, having served from 1967 to 1991.
A Biden appointee wouldn’t change the courtroom’s ideological stability, however would allow him to refresh its liberal wing with a a lot youthful jurist within the lifetime submit.
Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump appointed three justices throughout his 4 years in workplace, all of whom have been younger sufficient to serve for many years. The Senate, then beneath Republican management, confirmed Trump’s appointment of conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 after the dying of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
After Biden defeated Trump within the 2020 election, some liberal activists urged Breyer to step apart whereas Democrats management the Senate, involved that if he doesn’t achieve this, Republicans might block affirmation of his successor within the chamber or a future Republican president might be capable to identify his alternative and tilt the courtroom even additional to the correct.
The Senate is break up 50-50, with Democrats in management as a result of Vice President Kamala Harris can forged a tie-breaking vote. Affirmation of a justice requires a easy majority vote slightly than a earlier 60-vote threshold beneath a change made by Senate Republicans in 2017 once they managed the chamber and confronted Democratic opposition to Trump’s first Supreme Courtroom nominee.
Liberal activists are desirous to keep away from a repeat of what occurred when Trump was in a position to change Ginsburg, increasing the courtroom’s conservative majority.
The courtroom’s present nine-month time period started in October. It has been marked by an rising assertiveness of its conservative majority. The courtroom already is because of difficulty rulings by the top of June in instances giving the conservative justices an opportunity to curtail abortion rights and widen gun rights. The justices this week took up a case to be determined of their subsequent time period that might doom college insurance policies contemplating race as a think about scholar admissions and cripple affirmative motion insurance policies lengthy despised by the American proper.
On the courtroom’s liberal wing, Breyer was thought of a average who sought consensus when attainable.
Breyer final yr authored a ruling rejecting a Republican bid to invalidate Obamacare, preserving the landmark healthcare legislation formally referred to as the Reasonably priced Care Act for the third time since its 2010 enactment. He additionally wrote a ruling final yr in a serious free speech case that sided with a cheerleader who had been punished by her highschool for a profanity-laced social media submit.
Breyer authored two essential abortion rulings in 2016 and 2020 that struck down restrictions on clinics in Texas and Louisiana. He additionally was within the majority within the landmark ruling in 2015 that legalized homosexual marriage.
Breyer, in recent times, emerged as a persistent critic of the dying penalty and wrote that it was “extremely seemingly” that capital punishment violates the Structure’s Eighth Modification prohibition on merciless and weird punishment. He famous that harmless individuals have been executed, that capital punishment has been marred by racial discrimination and politics and that dying sentences have been imposed arbitrarily.
He beforehand served for 14 years as an appeals courtroom decide on the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals after having been appointed to that submit by Democratic President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Breyer additionally had stints as a professor at Harvard Legislation Faculty and as a staffer on Capitol Hill and within the Justice Division.
The courtroom’s different two liberal justices are Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.