As the liberal justices grow older and as the conservative majority decides an increased number of controversial cases, the Supreme Court is feeling more pressure from the Left. The Justice feeling it the most is Justice Stephen Breyer. Despite Justice Breyer generally championing the viewpoints of the Left, many are pressuring him to retire so the President can nominate a younger justice to replace him.
In a recent interview with NPR's Nina Totenberg, Justice Breyer reaffirmed his position that he will retire from the Court when he is ready, not at the behest of Democrats' political strategy.
Justice Breyer has also pushed back against the notion that the Court should be politicized.
Today Justice Breyer joined @FoxNewsSunday to talk about his long career and his future on the Supreme Court.pic.twitter.com/0LUXWMRVGK
— JCN (@judicialnetwork) September 12, 2021
At a recent lecture, Justice Amy Coney Barrett added to Justice Breyer's concerns over the politicization of the Court:
Justices must be “hyper vigilant to make sure they’re not letting personal biases creep into their decisions, since judges are people, too,” Barrett said at a lecture hosted by the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center.
Introduced by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who founded the center and played a key role in pushing through her confirmation in the last days of the Trump administration, Barrett spoke at length about her desire for others to see the Supreme Court as nonpartisan.
Barrett said the media’s reporting of opinions doesn’t capture the deliberative process in reaching those decisions. And she insisted that “judicial philosophies are not the same as political parties.”
“To say the court’s reasoning is flawed is different from saying the court is acting in a partisan manner,” said Barrett, whose confirmation to the seat left open by the death of the liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cemented conservative control of the court. “I think we need to evaluate what the court is doing on its own terms.”
Beyond the political pressure, the Left is also relying on physical intimidation to express their disdain with members of the Court. On Monday night, ShutDownDC protested outside of Justice Brett Kavanaugh's house over the Court's recent decision to allow Texas' "heartbeat" abortion law to go into effect:
A Facebook event by the group said, “Brett Kavanaugh: You’re going to hear from us directly.”
It added that the group planned to use Monday’s protest to tell the justice to “keep your oppressive” ideology “out of our bodies” and to demand his resignation.
The group approaches Kavanaugh’s home. Neighborhood kids watching on their porch. pic.twitter.com/bvc3Gh6m8y
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) September 13, 2021
The Left will resort to whatever they can, including intimidation, to use the Supreme Court as a mechanism to force their preferred policies on the rest of the country.