U.S. media reports say Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, for 27 years a staunch liberal voice on the country’s highest court, has decided to retire, handing President Joe Biden his first chance at filling an open seat after former President Donald Trump appointed three conservatives that tipped the court’s ideological balance sharply to the right.
The 83-year-old Breyer, according to news accounts in Washington, plans to remain on the court through the end of the court’s current term in June, or until a replacement is named by Biden and confirmed by the politically divided Senate.
Biden, unlike Trump when he ran for the presidency in 2016 and for re-election in 2020, has not released a list of judges he might consider for appointment to the nine-member Supreme Court.
But Biden, during his run for the presidency, has said he would name the court’s first Black woman, following his selection of then-Senator Kamala Harris, of Jamaican and South Asian descent, as his vice president.
…