Justice Stephen G. Breyer has made many rulings during a long and distinguished career, but his most consequential may turn out to be the one reported Tuesday: He will retire from the U.S. Supreme Court at the end of its current term in June, allowing President Joe Biden to nominate his replacement, and a Senate barely controlled by Democrats to confirm the appointment.
The issue of timing has hounded Breyer, a liberal justice, for more than year. At 83, he’s now the oldest justice by a decade and has served on the court for more than 27 years. The question many observers asked was whether he would step down before the looming midterm elections, when Republicans could take control of the Senate.
Political partisanship ought to make little difference to the court’s composition, but the sorry fact is that it does. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., last year said that if Republicans took back the Senate, it would be “highly unlikely” that any Biden nominee would be confirmed.
