Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer (image: public domain)
Posted on by Randy Slovacek

Justice Stephen Breyer To Retire From Supreme Court

Justice Stephen Breyer will retire from the Supreme Court at the end of the current term, according to NBC News.

His decision will give President Biden the opportunity to appoint a successor who could serve decades on the high court.

Breyer, who is 87, is the oldest member of the Supreme Court and has served there for more than 27 years.

More from NBC News:

Liberal activists have urged him for months to retire while Democrats hold both the White House and the Senate — a position that could change after the midterm elections in November.

They contended that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stayed too long despite her history of health problems and should have stepped down during the Obama administration.

Ginsburg’s death from cancer at 87 allowed then-President Donald Trump to appoint her successor, Amy Coney Barrett, moving the court further to the right. An appointment by Biden could keep Breyer’s seat on the liberal side of the court for years or decades to come.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden promised to appoint the first Black woman to the court.

Names that have been mentioned for some time now include U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, a former Breyer law clerk; and Leondra Kruger, a justice on California’s Supreme Court.

The Senate votes on SCOTUS nominees where a simple majority is all that’s required to approve the president’s appointee.

According to several reports, an official announcement is expected at the White House tomorrow.

Justice Stephen Breyer has long been an important player in the history of LGBTQ rights.

GLAAD reminds us that Breyer voted with the majority in several landmark Supreme Court cases securing the rights of LGBTQ citizens, including:

• Bostock v Clayton County (2020) – expanding Civil Rights employment protections

• Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) – granting the right to marry

• United States v. Windsor (2013) – overturning the discriminatory “Defense of Marriage Act”

• Lawrence v. Texas (2003) – securing the Constitutional right to privacy and dignity for LGBTQ people and relationships

• Romer v. Evans (1995) – striking down state laws banning LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections