U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is planning to retire, giving U.S. President Joe Biden a chance to fill the vacancy with the court’s first Black woman and setting up a confirmation showdown in the Senate.
The next justice would reinforce the court’s outnumbered liberal wing and potentially serve for decades but won’t shift the ideological balance. Breyer, the court’s oldest justice at 83, is a pragmatist who typically sides with the liberal wing in divisive cases.
Biden declined to confirm the retirement at the opening of a session with business leaders at the White House on Wednesday. A person familiar with the justice’s thinking said Breyer was retiring.