Anyone hoping Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer would retire at the onset of the summer recess received a discouraging sign on Friday.
The high court confirmed Breyer, who is the oldest justice on the bench at the age of 82, hired four clerks for the fall term, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The news is sure to frustrate Left-leaning court advocates who have increasingly pressed for Breyer to step down after the sudden death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last year gave former President Donald Trump the chance to cement a conservative majority on the court with the appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
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A vacancy would allow President Joe Biden to pick a nominee who would then go through the Senate confirmation process. Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats have a tenuous grip on the Senate, which is split 50-50 and has a tie-breaker in Vice President Kamala Harris. If Republicans retake control of the Senate, it would likely affect the strategy by which the administration would attempt to get a nominee passed.
If Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell were to become majority leader again, “at worst, he might block any Biden pick,” Brian Fallon, the executive director of the liberal judicial advocacy group Demand Justice, recently said on NPR. “And at best, Biden is going to have to calibrate who he selects in order to get them through a Republican-held Senate.”
Former President Bill Clinton nominated Breyer as an associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat on Aug. 3, 1994.
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Breyer said in December he has plans to retire but not anytime soon.
“Eventually I’ll retire, sure I will,” he told Slate in an interview. “And it’s hard to know exactly when.”
