WASHINGTON — Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the Supreme Court’s 82-year-old liberal pragmatist, plans to retire this year, clearing the way for President Joe Biden to make his first appointment to the high court, two sources told The Associated Press Wednesday.
Breyer, a 1994 appointee of President Bill Clinton, is the senior member of the three-justice liberal bloc, and his retirement is unlikely to change the court’s ideological balance.
But it should allow Democrats to replace him with a younger and possibly more assertive progressive. And the confirmation process is likely to dominate Democrats’ agenda in 2022.
