Is Stephen Breyer a Republican or a Democrat?
On Thursday, the United States Supreme Court will issue its last opinions for the current judicial term, and speculation is rife that Associate Justice Stephen Breyer may use the occasion to announce his retirement. Breyer will turn 83 on August 15, and some leftists are hoping he will resign from the Supreme Court and allow President Joe Biden to choose a replacement. The Supreme Court presently has a 6-3 conservative majority, whereas Breyer, along with Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, is a member of the courts liberal wing. A justice can retire at any timeand Breyer may not make his pronouncement on Thursday at allbut other justices have retired on the last day of court opinions. On the same day, former Associate Justices Sandra Day OConnor and Anthony Kennedy announced their retirements. Kennedy retired from the Supreme Bench in 2018 and OConnor from the court in 2006. Progressives and liberals have called for Breyer to resign, with some fearing that if he stays in office and dies while a Republican is in the White House, the courts conservative majority will be bolstered even more. Concerns have also been made over Associate Justice Amy Coney Barretts speedy confirmation in 2020 and Senate Republicans reluctance to conduct hearings for Merrick Garland, former President Barack Obamas choice in 2016. Breyer was nominated to the Supreme Court by then-President Bill Clinton in 1994, and he has consistently voted with the courts liberals, voting to affirm abortion rights on multiple occasions. In the 2020 case June Medical Services LLC v. Russo, he penned the majority opinion in which the court overturned a Louisiana law requiring any doctor providing abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion clinic. In the historic 2013 decision Shelby County v. Holder, where the court knocked down provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, effectively removing federal scrutiny  known as preclearance  for new voting laws in jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination, Breyer joined the minority opinion. In possibly the most contentious case of the last 30 years, Breyer dissented from the majority opinion in Bush v. Gore, the lawsuit that decided the presidential election in 2000. This is a condensed version of the information.