The retirement of the progressive judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, Stephen Breyer, gives the American president, Joe Biden, the opportunity to nominate an African-American woman for the highest judicial instance, a candy for the president with whom he could, however, choke on.
Whichever justice Biden nominates, in any case, would not change the current balance of the Supreme Court, which has not been this conservative since the 1930s.
The president promised in the 2020 electoral campaign that if he had the opportunity he would nominate the first African-American magistrate for the highest judicial instance in the country.
Now the opportunity has come, but to take advantage of it Biden will have to unite his party, a not easy task that he did not even manage to approve in Congress his great social spending package.
Approval of a new judge for the US Supreme Court depends on the Senate, where Democrats have a majority but cannot afford to lose a single vote.
For now, the Democrats feel confident and are sure they will have the support of their 50 senators, including two of their most conservative members: Joe Manchin, from West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema, from Arizona, a party source told Efe. .
BLACK CANDIDATES TO MAKE HISTORY
A good part of the Democratic caucus in Congress, especially its African-American members, is already pressuring Biden on Twitter to keep his promise and allow a black woman to reach the highest court for the first time in history.
The White House has not yet disclosed its options, but two possible candidates are Leondra Kruger, current judge on the California Supreme Court, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, whom Barack Obama already considered in 2016 for another Supreme Court vacancy and who she worked as a court clerk for Breyer himself.
Biden has not yet positioned himself on Breyer’s intention to retire when this judicial course ends in July, since it has not been officially confirmed by the Supreme Court.
Only some media have reported the news, citing sources familiar with the magistrate’s plans.
A PROGRESSIVE CAMPAIGN TO RETIRE BREYER
At 83, Breyer is the oldest member of the Supreme Court, and for months progressive groups like "Demand Justice" they have been demanding his retirement so that Biden could nominate a replacement taking advantage of the fact that the Democratic Party still dominates the Senate.
Last year, "Demand Justice" He even came to walk with a truck through the streets surrounding the Supreme Court with a large sign that read: "Breyer retire. It’s time for a black woman to get to the Supreme Court".
The activists’ greatest fear was that Breyer would retire or die when the Senate had another majority – which may happen if the Republicans regain it in the mid-term elections in November this year.
That was what happened to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a progressive icon who refused to retire when Barack Obama (2009-2017) was in power, and who died in 2020 with Donald Trump (2017-2021) in the White House. Ginsburg was replaced by her nemesis, conservative Amy Coney Barrett.
Whoever is chosen – or chosen if Biden does not keep his promise – would not change the current balance of the Supreme Court, the most conservative in the US since the 1930s.
Currently, six conservatives hold the lifetime seats on the Supreme Court against three progressives, including Breyer himself.
A PRAGMATIC LIBERAL
The judge was elected to the Supreme Court in 1994 by then-Democratic president Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and, curiously, Biden -then a senator from Delaware- chaired the Senate judicial committee when his nomination was approved to later receive the final endorsement of the plenary
Breyer is characterized as a pragmatic liberal, more moderate than other justices such as Ginsburg, and willing to reach a consensus with the more conservative members of the court.
Known for his incisive questions during oral arguments, Breyer always defended that the Constitution must be interpreted within the context of each era, which on some occasions earned him clashes with more conservative justices such as Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016.
One of the best-known sentences that Breyer wrote has to do with the right to abortion. In 2016, the judge was in charge of writing the ruling that overturned a Texas law and that had served to close half of the abortion clinics in that state.
On another occasion, in 2015, he distanced himself from the majority of the members of the Supreme Court and, in a separate note, considered that the death penalty had become such an arbitrary sentence in the United States that it was probably unconstitutional.
In recent times, one of his biggest concerns has been the polarization of the Supreme Court, a challenge that Biden will now have to face to find a replacement for him.
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