I think there's a good chance Justice Breyer will retire, now that Dems control the Senate. Obviously, if Republicans had maintained control, Mitch wouldn't have had hearings on a replacement, since we're only 3 years, 10 months from the next election.
Yes, he's old enough to retire. And unlike Ginsburg, he is wise enough to time his departure to get a replacement who is simpatico with his own philosophy of jurisprudence. Biden should pick someone younger than the other Justices, and a true liberal firebrand, a liberal version of Scalia. That would give Democrats some consolation over the McConnell/Trump coup on the high court.
I would like to see Breyer retire and Thomas’s seat also go up... followed by an impeachment of Barrett. Hopefully filled with extremely young progressives.
Thomas is clearly the most extreme, and arguably - the most political, Justice. But that's exactly why I don't think it's likely he'll retire. What would Barrett be impeached for?
I hadn't thought of that, but you're right. Obama had tried to appoint Garland, a moderate, because he felt he could get this through a Republican Senate. Biden has 2 years of a Democratic Senate, so he needn't compromise (and besides, Garland already has a job).
Obama was trying to placate an already-factionalized Senate GOP with his pick of Garland. McConnell in effect stole Obama's nomination (and more accurately speaking, stole the nomination that the Obama-electorate of 2012 had empowered Obama to make). Once Trump came in, the Democrats had no choice but to filibuster his nominee to the Court (Gorsuch); whereon the R-controlled Senate simply jettisoned the judicial filibuster for S.C. nominees, enabling them to consent to whoever Trump wanted, no matter how extreme. The contrast with Obama's olive-branch to the R Senate (in the form of Garland) was stinging. Now that the Democrats have united gov't - and, with the judicial filibuster out of the way - the Democrats can appoint whomever they damn well please, in the next two years. I am confident that Breyer will step aside and enable that to happen, before the midterm elections. And in all earnest: Democrats need to appoint a young, Left-liberal version of Scalia; not only a reliable vote for the liberal philosophy of jurisprudence, but someone who can promote that philosophy both on the Court and in the culture at large. The Republicans need to feel the pain of true turnabout. Though I don't wish ill on the gentlemen, both Thomas and Alito are aging/not in the best of health, and it's likely that if Trump had won another term, they would have both retired in the next 4 years. Now they are in the Ginsburg-role of trying to hang on until the political climate is favorable.
