Thursday, 17 June 2021 (YJC) _ A group of 18 legal academics has issued a joint letter urging the US supreme court justice S to retire so that Joe Biden can name his successor.
A group of 18 legal academics has issued an extraordinary joint letter urging the US supreme court justice Stephen Breyer to retire so that Joe Biden can name his successor.
The intervention came after Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader in the Senate, warned that Biden would not get a supreme court nominee confirmed in 2024 if Republicans regain control of the chamber and a vacancy arises.
With conservatives holding a 6-3 majority on the court, progressive activists have been calling for the liberal Breyer, who at 82 is the oldest member on the bench, to step down this year while Democrats narrowly control the Senate.
“It is time for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to announce his intent to retire,” the legal scholars say in a statement. “Breyer is a remarkable jurist, but with future control of a closely divided Senate uncertain, it is best for the country that President Biden have the opportunity to nominate a successor without delay.”
The signatories include Niko Bowie of Harvard Law School, Erwin Chemerinsky and David Singh Grewal of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law; Daniel Morales of the University of Houston Law Center; Samuel Moyn of Yale Law School, Zephyr Teachout of Fordham University; and Miranda Yaver of Oberlin College.
The statement was released by Demand Justice, a progressive group mounting a concerted campaign to make Breyer consider his position, with everything from reproductive rights to voting rights and gun control potentially at stake.
This week it is among 13 liberal groups, including Black Lives Matter, the Sunrise Movement and Women’s March, publishing an advertisement in prominent media outlets. It says: “Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer should immediately announce his intent to retire from the bench.
While serving as majority leader, McConnell blocked Barack Obama from filling a vacancy left by the death of the conservative justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016, contending that it would be inappropriate to confirm a supreme court nominee during a presidential election year.
McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans refused to consider Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, who now serves as Biden’s attorney general. That enabled Donald Trump, the winner of the November 2016 election, to appoint the conservative justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017.
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