PUBLIC LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
Justice Breyer’s legacy and the Supreme Court’s rightward shift
HKS Professor Maya Sen, whose work focuses on the intersection of justice and rights issues, explains how President Biden’s appointment of a successor to retiring justice Stephen Breyer will merely maintain the court’s liberal minority bloc—and is unlikely to slow the court’s conservative tilt in recent years. In a discussion on the vacancy, Sen says the appointment of a new justice will keep the current 6-3 conservative majority in place for the foreseeable future: “And that means that it's going to be a conservative majority on all kinds of blockbuster issues that are coming up, including abortion, gun rights, affirmative action, environmental protections, presidential powers, and more.” Sen is co-director of the Supreme Court Public Opinion Project. |