Retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer dismissed calls that Justice Sonia Sotomayor ought to step down from the bench, saying she is a “spring chicken.”
“I think anybody can say what he wants, you know. And I was 83 years old, just about I think, when I retired. But Justice Sotomayor is not, she is a spring chicken,” Breyer instructed Fox News host Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday.”
There have been calls in current months, together with in op-eds such because the one revealed within the Atlantic, that Sotomayor retire beneath the Biden administration. The current push for the justice to resign comes forward of the presidential election, with left-leaning pundits and teachers arguing President Biden and the Democrat-controlled Senate may approve a candidate earlier than the presidential election.
“I think there is a difference. She is a spring chicken and I’m an old rooster. There we are. But people can say what they want. The decision about what to do is up to the judge,” Breyer mentioned.
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“You can stay there until you are 150 years old if you want,” he mentioned of the lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court docket. “But in my mind, at least there did come a time and I guess 83, 84, 85 – I don’t know exactly how many 80s you want in there – but it’s time for another person,” he mentioned.
Sotomayor is 69 years outdated and has served on the court docket since 2009, when President Barack Obama appointed her to the place following the retirement of Justice David Souter on the age of 69. Sotomayor, who has Type 1 diabetes, is the oldest liberal-leaning Supreme Court justice, however youthful than each Justice Samuel Alito, 74, and Justice Clarence Thomas, 75, who’re each conservative.
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Liberal pundits argue that if Sotomayor doesn’t retire beneath the Biden administration, Republicans may take management of the White House and Senate following the election, that means Sotomayor must stay on the bench till Democrats resume management to make sure a liberal-leaning justice is nominated, or threat shedding the seat to a brand new, youthful conservative justice if presumed GOP nominee Donald Trump takes the White House.
Breyer additionally mirrored on his friendship with the late Justice Antonin Scalia in his interview with “Fox News Sunday,” regardless of the 2 having wildly totally different authorized opinions. The interview comes as Breyer touts his new guide, “Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism,” which is crucial of conservative justices for his or her resolution to overturn Roe v. Wade.
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Breyer is a pragmatist, that means he views legal guidelines as being created by particular social contexts, whereas textualism interprets legal guidelines and the Constitution primarily based on its “plain meaning,” not its intent, regulation definitions present.
Breyer mentioned that years in the past, he and Scalia, a conservative stalwart who recognized as a textualist, visited college students in Lubbock, Texas, at a soccer stadium the place the 2 justices debated authorized opinions whereas illustrating to college students the pair have been nonetheless shut buddies regardless of the ideological variations.
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“They’d never seen a Supreme Court judge, and we talked about it, and before you know it… it was clear to them, we liked each other. It was also clear we didn’t agree. So I said, ‘Look, this document, written more than 200 years ago, 1788, 1789.’ I’d say, ‘Look, hey, things have changed. The values don’t change. The freedom of speech stands for certain values, but what it’s applying to changes.’ So I say, you know, ‘Nino, George Washington did not know about the internet,'” he recounted.
“And Nino says, ‘I knew that,’” Breyer recounted of his debates with Scalia, whom he affectionately calls “Nino.” Scalia all of the sudden died of a coronary heart assault in 2016 on the age of 79.
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“So he says, ‘Stephen, the problem with your approach, looking at these different things is it’s too complicated. It’s too complicated. You’re the only one who can do it.’… But then I say to him, ‘If we follow your approach, we’ll have a Constitution that no one would want.’ And so there you have the essence of the argument,” he added.