{"id":7274,"date":"2022-02-18T17:28:06","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T17:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=7274"},"modified":"2022-02-18T17:28:06","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T17:28:06","slug":"stephen-breyer-tried-to-compromise-on-an-increasingly-uncompromising-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=7274","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Breyer Tried to Compromise On An Increasingly Uncompromising Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Breyer prizes compromise, and as the court has become more ideologically polarized, he\u2019s tried to find points of common ground with the conservative justices, even on relatively high-profile issues, like religious liberty. That pragmatic streak was on display in 2005, when he served as the pivotal vote<\/a> in two separate cases about public displays of the Ten Commandments. In one of the cases, he voted with the conservatives to uphold the display; in the other, he voted with the liberals to strike it down. Over the years, he joined the conservatives in a variety of other important religion cases, including a dispute over a 40-foot cross<\/a> that was displayed on public property in Maryland and a fight over whether Missouri could exclude<\/a> a church from a public grant program for playground resurfacing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In those cases, he often stressed the need to avoid religious disagreements \u2014 which sometimes led to outcomes that upset liberals. In the 2005 case where he voted<\/a> to uphold a Ten Commandments display in Texas, for instance, he wrote that although it was a \u201cborderline case,\u201d ruling that it was unconstitutional could lead to the removal of similar displays around the country and \u201cthereby create the very kind of religiously based divisiveness that the Establishment Clause seeks to avoid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And his breaks with his liberal colleagues haven\u2019t been on religion alone. According to a recent analysis<\/a> by political scientists Lee Epstein, Andrew Martin and Kevin Quinn, Breyer cast the lowest percentage of liberal votes of any of the three Democratic appointees who served with him. Epstein, Martin and Quinn found that most of those disagreements were in the area of criminal procedure, particularly in cases related to search and seizure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, Breyer has been an outspoken liberal voice on other issues, including reproductive rights and the death penalty.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Breyer plainly became concerned about the court\u2019s reputation, particularly after Ginsburg died and was replaced by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, which gave the conservative majority even more power<\/a>. He\u2019s spent the years since then trying to convince Americans that the court was fundamentally a nonideological institution, even publishing a short book<\/a> where he argued that the court \u2014 despite its clear conservative tilt \u2014 was not a political institution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That commitment to preserving the judiciary\u2019s nonpartisan image \u2014 and staying mostly in line with public opinion \u2014 put Breyer increasingly out of step with the court\u2019s trajectory. This year\u2019s term isn\u2019t over yet, but at least some of the Supreme Court conservatives seem ready to veer<\/a> sharply outside the mainstream on abortion, gun rights and other high-profile issues. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, meanwhile, shows no desire<\/a> to make nice with the conservatives \u2014 in a recent dissent, she called the court\u2019s decision to leave a highly restrictive Texas abortion law in place a \u201cdisaster\u201d and a \u201cgrave disservice to women in Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a 2020 interview, Breyer told reporter Dahlia Lithwick<\/a>, \u201cThe best is the enemy of the good. \u2026 But if you have a choice between achieving 20 or 30 percent of what you\u2019d like or being the hero of all your friends, choose the first.\u201d That attitude seems unlikely to be especially popular at the Supreme Court going forward \u2014 among liberals or conservatives.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Stephen Breyer Tried to Compromise On An Increasingly Uncompromising Supreme Court<\/a><\/blockquote>