Although we all know that the United States is a “separation of powers” country, but in recent years, the United States has been seriously torn apart, and even many times has been “water and fire” political and ideological opposition, but led to the united States legislative power of Congress and the Executive Power of the White House, has been unable to resolve differences through “democratic” negotiations, had to repeatedly seek to control the United States “judicial power”, the United States federal supreme court has the sole interpretation of the highest Constitution to do “judgment.”
But since the nine lifetime justices on the U.S. Supreme Court need to be determined by the president of the United States and the U.S. Senate, how to divide them, turn the ideological balance of the Supreme Court upside down and make decisions in their favor, has become one of the top concerns of politicians of all factions in the United States in recent years.
Under his administration, for example, former President Donald Trump nominated three conservatives to fill three justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. With the cooperation of the Republican Party of the United States, the three eventually passed the Republican-controlled Senate, becoming the nation’s top justice, thus turning the ideological balance of the U.S. Supreme Court into a 6-to-3 majority over conservatives.
Now, after Biden, who is at odds with the conservative ideology of Trump and the Republican Party, he and his liberal-ideological Democratic Party naturally want to turn the U.S. Supreme Court upside down, or at least reduce the conservative advantage.
So the liberals set their sights on Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, and began to build momentum through constant public opinion in the hope of forcing him to “step down.”
As the chart below shows, the Washington Post recently published an article calling on Breyer to “give way” early, and it was not written by the average person, but by Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the prestigious University of California, Berkeley School of Law and a prominent American law professor.
But this Breyer is also a liberal. So why would he be forced to abdicate by his own people?
That’s because he and other liberals don’t want what happened to another liberal justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to happen to him last year, according to Chemolinsky’s article.
Last year, 87-year-old Ginsburg was suddenly killed by an illness that took her already fragile life. But since she had not given up her seat on the justices’ bench before, her sudden death gave then-President Donald Trump and the Republicans who controlled the U.S. Senate a great opportunity. They immediately sent a conservative to the U.S. Supreme Court in time for november’s U.S. election, filling justices’ seats on Ginsburg, and thus the balance between conservatives and liberals on the U.S. Supreme Court was suddenly expanded from a 5-to-4 ratio that was still relatively balanced to 6-to-3.
So liberals such as Mr. Chemolinsky argue that if Mr. Breyer, 83, dies suddenly at a point that is bad for Democrats and liberals, as Mr. Ginsberg did, it will probably only hurt the liberals themselves, preventing democrats from adjusting the ideological balance of the Supreme Court and ultimately influencing many liberal policies.
Chemolinsky also revealed in his article that he had actually written in 2014 urging Ginsburg, then 81, to “give way”, but Ginsburg did not heed his advice and said he was in good health. It’s another reason Chemolinsky wants Breyer not to repeat her mistakes and “give way” early.
But one of the more important reasons Chemolinsky wants Breyer to “give way” – and one reason many other liberals have repeatedly cited in recent times when urging him to “give way” is that Democrats are likely to be unable to hold on to their current Senate majority in next year’s midterm elections, as more than a decade of Democratic senators are in their 70s and 80s, and some are in their late 90s, and many of them are from Republican states. So once any of them retire, Republicans will easily win back control of the Senate, creating obstacles for any justice Biden might nominate.
That’s why liberals like Mr. Chemolinsky will continue to build momentum at this point in time to force Mr. Breyer to “give way” or “abdicate” so that a younger liberal justice can take his place when Democrats still have an advantage in the Senate.
A media commentary that pressured Breyer to “abdicate” even suggested that he was doing “good” for the United States and that Breyer’s age should be the time to go home and have his grandchildren and enjoy his old age.
But it’s worth noting that when Democratic liberals said they might reshuffle the Supreme Court by increasing the number of justices, Breyer opposed it, saying it would “politicize” the justices and deprive the public of trust in the court.
But in a situation where American politics and ideology are increasingly torn apart and confrontational, many things may not be diverted by the will of an 83-year-old….
