Sometimes the changes serve to ensure that, at least, everything remains the same.
The progressive judge of the Supreme Court Stephen Breyer intends to retire at the end of this judicial year, in July, as it has been known this Wednesday.
At 83 years old, he is the oldest magistrate of the nine that make up the high court.
His withdrawal will allow Joe Biden, president of the United States, to appoint another progressive judge, before the mid-term elections, which will be held in November, when the Democrats will presumably lose their majority in the Senate.
The president has expressed on several occasions his intention that the witness be taken, for the first time, by a black woman.
That appointment will guarantee maintaining the current
status quo
of the judicial body, with a conservative supermajority of six against three, a situation that had not occurred in the United States in the last eighty years.
The positions are for life in the Supreme Court and a certain composition can influence the future of the country for decades -given the capacity of its decisions to set a constitutional precedent and influence the daily life of the people- in matters such as abortion, criteria for admission to universities or the possession of weapons (three issues that are currently being debated).
Left-wing activists and analysts and Democratic politicians had pressed Breyer in recent months to consider stepping aside to avoid a Ruth Bader Ginsburg moment.
The progressive judge, an icon of feminism and the closest thing to a pop star that the judiciary of this country has given, endured in her position until the end, despite her state of health.
She died of cancer at the age of 87 on September 18, 2020, weeks before the presidential elections, held that November.
That allowed Donald Trump to appoint another conservative judge (Amy Coney Barrett, then 48 years old, today the youngest on the court), which triggered the compass of the Supreme Court, which until then had been made up of five conservatives and four progressives. , More to the right.
Coney Barrett was Trump's third appointment to the high court (following Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh), which has gone some way to perpetuating her legacy.
Breyer's retirement will allow Biden to prevent the trend from escalating (and the court splitting seven to two).
The fact of leaving before the legislative elections in November guarantees the Democrats, who have 50 of 100 seats in the Senate, and the qualified vote of the vice president, Kamala Harris, autonomy to decide the name of who replaces him.
This will be possible because the appointment of Supreme Court judges is one of the few decisions of Congress that does not require a majority of 60 seats, which,
de facto,
is mandatory in most of the draft laws, due to the practice of filibustering, which allows the minority party to block the advances of its opponents.
The pressure on Breyer, who was appointed in 1994 by Bill Clinton, has been deployed on many fronts: from the academic world (Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, from the University of Berkeley, invited him in May from a platform in
The Washington
Post to “ putting the institution and the country he loves above his own interests”), to activism.
A progressive association called Demand Justice hired a truck to drive around the Supreme Court building with the following message: “Breyer, stand down.
It's time for a black woman on the Supreme Court."
And everything indicates that this is precisely what will happen.
Biden already expressed during the campaign that brought him to the White House his desire to make history.
He will now have the opportunity to appoint the first African American to the position.
"It is necessary that they have representation at once, it has been a long time [that is necessary]," she said in March 2020. After learning of Breyer's decision, the US media has rushed to cast her pools.
They all feature the name of Ketanji Brown Jackson, who received the support of all 50 Democrats and three Republicans when she was nominated last year for a District of Columbia Circuit judge position.
In an August interview with
The New York Times,
Breyer said he was debating when would be the right time to resign, recalling a few words by Antonin Scalia, a progressive justice who died in 2016 (and was replaced by Neil Gorsuch at the beginning of the was Trump): “He told me, 'I don't want someone to be appointed to reverse everything I've done for the last 25 years,'” Breyer recalled. "So I don't think I'm going to stay in the job until I die, I hope not," he added.
Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, tweeted within minutes of Breyer's intention being revealed, perhaps to dispel any suspicion of pressure from Biden: “It is always the decision of any Supreme Court justice to withdraw.
As well as when and how they want to announce it.
That's how it was today."
In the message, she added that the White House had no additional details or information to share.
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