(FiveNation.com)- In an opinion piece at National Review, Charles C.W. Cooke suggests Justice Breyer’s retirement from the Supreme Court may not be all bad news for conservatives.
One blazingly obvious reason Cooke offers for why Breyer’s retirement isn’t so bad is that the overall makeup of the court will not be impacted. Breyer is one of the three Liberal justices and his replacement will be one of the three liberal justices.
What’s more, Cooke explains, Biden is likely to replace Breyer with another “bomb-throwing hack in the mold of” Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Cooke thinks that kind of choice will only end up marginalizing the Liberal justices even further. The squishy conservatives on the bench (Roberts and Kavanaugh) will be less likely to be persuaded by kooks than they would be by people like Breyer. Cooke believes getting a Sotomayor clone will create even more distance between the Liberals and the squishy conservatives, thereby further weakening the influence of the Liberal justices.
Cooke also suspects that Joe Manchin will end up expending some of his political capital in supporting Biden’s nominee. And this is political capital he won’t be able to use to support a skinny version of Biden’s monstrous “Build Back Better” legislation. Cooke believes Manchin’s state won’t allow him to both support Biden’s leftwing SCOTUS pick and acquiesce to the highly unpopular spending bill. So if Manchin votes to confirm the nominee, it will make him far less likely to capitulate to the Democrats on the BBB bill.
Cooke also suspects that having a high-profile Supreme Court confirmation fight right before the 2022 Midterms will do more to motivate Republican voters than Democrat voters. This would be a net plus for Republicans looking to regain control of the evenly divided Senate as Republican voters will want to ensure Republicans will be the ones controlling any subsequent Biden nominations.
Finally, Cooke believes with the likelihood of Roe v Wade being overturned this summer, the vacancy will force Democrats to refocus their attention on Breyer’s replacement instead of their “quixotic attempt to ‘pack’” the Supreme Court. Cooke explains that it would be impossible for Democrats in a 50/50 Senate to focus on both.
