The nation’s justice system is once again going to be monumentally shifted with the retirement of long-standing Justice Stephen Breyer in his 28 years of service from the Supreme Court. Through debating the constitutionality of the death penalty and arguing for the justice of abortion, Breyer quickly made a name for himself since his original appointment under the Clinton Administration. Amidst a dominantly liberal government, Breyer fell to the democratic pressure wanting him to give up his position for Biden to elect a new, liberal justice.
Breyer’s policy was pragmatic – it combined a popular mixture of conservatism and liberalism that tempered strongly partisan rulings. Namely Stenberg v. Carhart (2000) where Breyer voted in favor of women’s privacy rights as partial abortions were a clear violation of a woman’s fundamental liberties. The same situation for Glossip v. Gross: Breyer showed an untraditional aversion to the legality of the death penalty even though the conservative agenda he aligns himself with is very much for it.
Regardless of Breyer’s remarkable accomplishments; even more notably, Biden plans to have the first black-female Justice ever in American history. Ketanji Brown Jackson is a promising, democratic circuit judge that seems to be the most common mention for Breyer’s successor, and is most likely going to become the new Justice given the democratically dominated houses of congress. The new justice can be elected solely on Democratic votes, with no need of a single Republican to support the instatement of a newly-aligned judge.
Even in the minor controversy appointing the first black-female justice, the US is on a clear-cut path to a more progressive and modern adaptation of government. The values of diversity are not only shared in society but are now being realized in the ruling institutions that mold American society into what it is today. Based on the next president, a conservative approach may just as well stagger any attempts at modernizing the current government while a liberal one could push America into progressive bounds never seen before.
