{"id":745697,"date":"2021-09-12T21:35:53","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T01:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=745697"},"modified":"2021-09-12T21:35:59","modified_gmt":"2021-09-13T01:35:59","slug":"liberal-justice-breyer-warns-against-democrats-packing-supreme-court-people-will-lose-trust-in-the-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/liberal-justice-breyer-warns-against-democrats-packing-supreme-court-people-will-lose-trust-in-the-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberal Justice Breyer Warns Against Democrats Packing Supreme Court: \u2018People Will Lose Trust In The Court\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fliberal-justice-breyer-warns-against-democrats-packing-supreme-court-people-will-lose-trust-in-the-court%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=745697&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/SB-scaled-1.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer warned during a Fox News interview with anchor Chris Wallace that any attempts to expand the Supreme Court could undermine its legitimacy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t intend to die on the court,\u201d Breyer told Wallace, later adding that there were \u201cmany considerations\u201d that factor into his decision-making when it comes retirement.<\/p>\n<p>When asked about a push from Democrats to expand the Supreme Court, Bryer responded, \u201cWell, if one party could do it, I guess another party could do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn the surface, it seems to me you start changing all these things around, and people will lose trust in the court,\u201d Breyer added.<\/p>\n<div id>\n<p><em>CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: He\u2019s been a Supreme Court justice for 27 years, and is now the target of a new push by liberals who want him to step down so he can be replaced by someone younger. That makes it all the more timely that Stephen Breyer has just come out with a new book, called \u201cThe Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics,\u201d where he discusses the very real threat the court will get caught up in today\u2019s polarized debate.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I sat down recently with Justice Breyer for an exclusive one-on-one.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: Justice Breyer, welcome back to \u201cFox News Sunday.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>STEPHEN BREYER, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: Thank you.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: I want to start with the premise of your book. You quote Alexander Hamilton as saying that the judiciary has neither purse, like Congress, nor sword, like the executive, and so it has to rely on public acceptance for its authority. Is the public acceptance \u2014 is the authority of the court in jeopardy?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: Hard to say. I mean, I don\u2019t think \u2014 I\u2019m an optimist, you know, and so I think, well, people understand, to some degree, why it\u2019s a good idea what Hamilton thought. And he thought the court should be there because there should be somebody, somebody who says, when the other two branches of the government have gone outside the confines of that document, who\u2019s that, the president? Well, he was a little worried the president might say whatever he did was right. Congress? Well, some countries do have that. And a member of Congress knows what\u2019s popular. If he didn\u2019t know what was popular, he won\u2019t be there \u2014 or she won\u2019t be there for a long time.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>But this document is made for unpopular people, just as much as for popular people. So \u2014<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: I\u2019m curious \u2014 I\u2019m curious, do you carry a copy of the Constitution with you, or just for TV?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: No, not just for TV. It\u2019s always in my pocket, and I hope I will put a jacket on that has one in my pocket, because you never know when somebody\u2019s going to ask a question.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: Which brings us to the second half of the title of your book, \u201cThe Peril of Politics.\u201d You say that if people come to view judges, justices, as politicians in robes, that that undercuts the authority of the court.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: To a degree, I think it would. I mean, junior league politicians.&nbsp;<\/em><em>Hey, if you want to have a politician, let\u2019s have a senior league politician.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: One of the most interesting parts of your book, you say at one point, it\u2019s wrong to think of the court as a political institution. But then you quickly add, to say that there\u2019s a complete divorce between the court and politics isn\u2019t quite right either.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: Yes, exactly.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: So which is it?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: When the court \u2014 in what I think was one of its, perhaps its greatest decision, said the words of this Constitution, which say equal protection of the law, mean that you cannot have racial segregation by law.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>When they said that, a few years later, a case comes up about marriage between a black man and a white woman. Ha, did they hear that and say it was illegal? Frankfurter said \u2014 I believe it was Frankfurter, don\u2019t take it now. Hear the case later.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Why? Because they were having a very, very, very hard time getting the South to accept their ruling. And so they\u2019re interested in that. And Earl Warren, of course, was a great political figure. And I\u2019ve always thought \u2014 I have no evidence \u2014 but I\u2019ve always thought that his experience in politics there led him to think, let\u2019s not take it now.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Eventually they took it and they said, of course, people of different races can get married. Of course. But that timing \u2014 that timing is the kind of thing that, well, the law books don\u2019t teach you that. It\u2019s not there in the [treatises]. You see what I mean?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: In other words, even the court can\u2019t go too far too fast.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: No.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: So let\u2019s pursue that.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>You say judges should not play politics, they should not push ideology, but they do have different jurisprudential philosophies. And I want to quote you, specifically. You write, \u201cSome judges emphasize text and history, some emphasize purposes and consequences.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>But, Justice Breyer, isn\u2019t that a bit of a copout because don\u2019t the judges, the textualist[s], almost always tilt conservative, and don\u2019t the consequences justices \u2014 you\u2019ve been accused of being that \u2014 generally lean liberal?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: I don\u2019t know. I mean, it\u2019s so easy to say. And there is a recent case involving gay rights \u2014 rights in the workplace, not to be [fired] because of sexual discrimination.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: Right. Right, right.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: That was made up of a group of people, the majority there, who \u2014 they included people who emphasized consequences, and they included people who emphasized absolutely pure text. You see?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: One of your arguments against seeing the court as political is the fact that it refused to ever hear the appeals from the Trump camp about the <\/em><em>2020 election, didn\u2019t even hear them.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: No judge has had the courage, including the Supreme Court. I am so disappointed in them. No judge, including the Supreme Court of the United States, has had the courage to allow it to be heard.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(END VIDEO CLIP)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: Why was that?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: Why was it? Because they didn\u2019t bring a case, I guess, that met the normal criteria for being heard. When we decide to take a case, there have to be four votes to take it. So I can\u2019t go beyond that.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>What we do know is that there were not four votes to take it because it wasn\u2019t taken. And there are criteria, and if we don\u2019t take a case it\u2019s, you know, I mean the reason was \u2014 in all likelihood is that the criteria weren\u2019t met.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: One of the problems that you discuss in your book is the growing partisanship of the confirmation process.&nbsp;<\/em><em>Back in 1994, you were confirmed by the U.S. Senate 87 to nine.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Question: do you think, in 2021, as a former staffer for Edward M. Kennedy \u2014<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: Yes.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: There\u2019s any chance you would get 87 votes?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: I know what you\u2019re saying and the answer is, of course, no.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: Look at what Senator Mitch McConnell did. In 2016, he refuses to give Merrick Garland even a hearing in the eight months before the election. And then, in 2020, he pushes through Amy Coney Barrett in one month before the election.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Doesn\u2019t that undercut the authority of the court?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: I was confirmed, and I was nominated. And the confirmation process and the nomination process, well, I say, usually when you ask me about that, and people do, I say it\u2019s like asking for the recipe for Chicken a la King from the point of view of the chicken.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>And \u2014 and I will say \u2014<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: I \u2014 I \u2014 that \u2014<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: Yes, that\u2019s a [flip] joke.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: Right.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: But the truth of the joke is, that\u2019s not \u2014 that\u2019s the political environment. Now, you may disapprove of it, I may disapprove of it, and if enough people in the public want it to change or be modified one way or the other, it will be.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: I interviewed your colleague, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, back in 2012. And I want to play a clip from that interview.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Take a \u2014 take a look.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: Will you time your retirement so that a more conservative president can appoint a like-minded justice?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>ANTONIN SCALIA, FORMER ASSOCIATE JUSTICE ON U.S. SUPREME COURT: I would not like to be replaced by someone who immediately sets about undoing everything that I\u2019ve tried to do for 25 years, 26 years, sure. But I mean, I shouldn\u2019t have to tell you that, unless you think I\u2019m a fool.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(END VIDEO CLIP)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: Do you agree with Scalia that a justice who is unmindful of the politics of the president who replaces him, who\u2019s unmindful of that, is a fool?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: I [don\u2019t] intend to die on the court. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll be there forever.&nbsp;<\/em><em>But \u2014 but I\u2019ve \u2014 I\u2019ve said a few of the considerations previously and I \u2014<\/em><em>&nbsp;I think \u2014<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: But do you think the consideration that Scalia mentioned, I don\u2019t want to be replaced by somebody who\u2019s going to undo everything that I\u2019ve spent \u2014<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: That I\u2019ve done? That I\u2019ve \u2014 undo everything I\u2019ve done?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: Yes.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: I see the point. And probably, in your background, there\u2019s \u2014 can be something. There are many considerations. Many, many considerations.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: This brings us to the calls for you to step down while a Democratic president and a [Democratic] \u2014 can appoint your successor and a Democratic Senate can confirm your successor. Here\u2019s one example of that.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): He makes his own decision about if he\u2019s going to retire. But he\u2019s going \u2014 if he\u2019s going to retire, it should be sooner rather than later if you are concerned about the court.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(END VIDEO CLIP)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: What do you think of those calls?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: Well, I think that they\u2019re entitled to their opinion. I think they&nbsp;<\/em><em>\u2014 and not only they understand the political world much better than I, or they understand it pretty well. And there we are. What else you want me to say?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: They would say you ignored those calls and increased the chances that a Republican Senate will be there to confirm your successor.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: Well, I mean, there are factors. There are many factors. In fact, quite a few. And the role of the court and so forth is one of them and the situation, the institutional considerations are some and \u2014 and I \u2014 I believe \u2014 I can\u2019t say I\u2019d take anything perfectly into account, but in my own mind I \u2014 I think about those things.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: So why didn\u2019t you retire?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: I didn\u2019t retire because I had decided on balance I wouldn\u2019t retire.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: President Biden has appointed a commission to come back to him in November and discuss \u2014 weigh in on possible reforms to the court.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>What do you think of the idea of increasing the number of justices on the court?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: Well, if one party could do it, I guess another party could do it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>And the more thing \u2014 I mean it\u2019s fairly surface \u2014 on the surface, it seems to me you start changing all these things around, and people will lose trust in the court.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: What about term limits? People, even justices, live a lot longer now than they did back in the 18 century. Would it lower the political heat if, say, a justice served for 18 years instead of a life term?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: Well, I think you could do that. It should be a very long-term because you don\u2019t want the judge who\u2019s holding that term to start thinking about his next job. But it would make life easier for me.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: You just turned 83 years old. I\u2019ve got to say, you look terrific.&nbsp;<\/em><em>You\u2019re of sound mind and body.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: Thank you. Thank you.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: What do you hope people say about your service on the court?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: The best thing they could say, I thought I liked very much, is it has an appeal to me, was what Thurgood Marshall said. And they said, well, what do you want on your tombstone? And he said, he did his best. That\u2019s it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I\u2019m there for everybody. I\u2019m not just there for the Democrats. I\u2019m not just there for the Republicans. And I\u2019m not just there because a president was a Democrat who appointed me. It\u2019s a very great privilege to be in that job.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>And part of it is to remember that you\u2019re there for everyone. They won\u2019t like what you say half the time or more, but you\u2019re still there for them.&nbsp;<\/em><em>And that\u2019s the privilege of the job in a way. You have to give your all.&nbsp;<\/em><em>And you have to work as hard as you can.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>So, you see, I think it\u2019s important we have trust.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WALLACE: The name of the book is \u201cThe Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Justice Breyer, thank you.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>BREYER: Thank you very much, Chris. Thank you.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><i><span>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i><span>member<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer warned during a Fox News interview with anchor Chris Wallace that any attempts to expand the Supreme Court could undermine its legitimacy.\u201cI don\u2019t intend &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-745697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}