Abstract
Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement from the Supreme Court on 30 June 2022 marked the end of an era. Breyer was a rare Democratic appointee in an era of conservative Courts led by Republican-appointed Chief Justices William Rehnquist and John Roberts. Breyer was part of a shrinking group of moderate Justices who were at first able hold the line against the Court’s activist conservatives but were later outvoted and overtaken by an emboldened Republican majority, particularly during his final term on the bench.
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Notes
- 1.
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, quoted by Linda Greenhouse, “Justices Limit the Use of Race in School Plans for Integration,” The New York Times, 29 June 2007.
- 2.
See Christine Nemacheck, Strategic Selection: Presidential Nomination of Supreme Court Justices from Herbert Hoover Through George W. Bush (University of Virginia Press, 2008).
- 3.
U.S. Senate, “Nomination of Stephen G. Breyer to be an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court,” 12–15 July 1994 at 8.
- 4.
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, “A Conversation with Justice Stephen Breyer,” 21 September 2003.
- 5.
Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000) at 945–946.
- 6.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health (2022) dissenting opinion at 6. See chapter 2 by Mary Ziegler.
- 7.
Lee Epstein, Andrew D. Martin, and Kevin Quinn, “Replacing Justice Breyer,” 24 January 2022, https://epstein.usc.edu/replacingjusticebreyer.
- 8.
Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677 (2005) at 702–703.
- 9.
See SCOTUS 2018 chapter 6, “Masterpiece Cakeshop on Gay Rights Versus Religious Liberty,” by Stephen Engel.
- 10.
See SCOTUS 2020 chapter 5, “Espinoza, Lady of Guadalupe, and Little Sisters of the Poor on Religious Liberty,” by Kevin Pybas.
- 11.
Stephen Breyer, Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution (Vintage Books, 2005), The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics (Harvard University Press, 2010).
- 12.
Stephen Breyer, The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities (Penguin, Random House, 2015).
- 13.
Stephen Breyer, Against the Death Penalty (Brookings Institution Press, 2016).
- 14.
See SCOTUS 2021 chapter 4 “California v. Texas on the Final Installment of the Obamacare Trilogy,” by Josh Blackman, and chapter 9 “Mahanoy v. B.L. on Off Campus Student Speech,” by Katy Harriger.
- 15.
NY Rifle Breyer dissent at 2 and 52.
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Collins, P.M., Ward, A. (2023). The Legacy of Justice Stephen Breyer: Pragmatic Moderate in an Era of Conservative Courts. In: Marietta, M. (eds) SCOTUS 2022. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18468-0_16
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