Stop Telling Stephen Breyer to Retire
The Supreme Court justice doesn’t need liberals to tell him he’s 82.
He can do the math.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/Getty Images North AmericaFriends, Romans, countrymen, law professors: Please stop telling Justice Stephen Breyer to retire. Yes, Breyer is a (healthy) 82. Yes, the Democratic Senate majority is wafer-thin, and it would likely be impossible for President Joe Biden to replace Breyer with another liberal if the Democrats lose even one of their 50 votes in the Senate.
But here’s the thing: Breyer knows these facts already. He is the one of the great pragmatist justices ever to have sat on the Supreme Court, following in the footsteps of Justice Louis Brandeis. Breyer also knows Capitol Hill, having worked there three separate times: once on the Watergate investigation and twice for the Senate Judiciary Committee. He can be trusted to do the right thing – provided liberal law professors don’t box him in by declaring that he “must” resign.