Could Breyer become the next swing justice?
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer could become the next “median justice” if President Barack Obama is able to get a liberal nominee confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Recently new justices have replaced outgoing justices with similar ideologies, the Upshot blog of the New York Times notes. But replacing Justice Antonin Scalia with a liberal “would alter the center of the court substantially,” the article says.
The current median justice is Anthony M. Kennedy, who was ranked as weakly liberal last term, and weakly conservative in other recent years, according to the Upshot. If Scalia is replaced by a liberal, Breyer would become the median justice, making him the most liberal median since 1937 when scholarly ideological rankings of the justices began.
Such large ideological shifts are rare. “And when they’ve occurred, they’ve led to drag-out fights for Senate confirmation,” the Upshot notes. “Consider the battle over Clarence Thomas’s nomination. Thomas replaced Justice Thurgood Marshall, marking the largest ideological shift in the country’s history.”
Hat tip to @victoriakwan_.
Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.
