Supreme Court Stephen Breyer Announces Retirement

NEWS -- January 26, 2022: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, an influential liberal who has served on the

court since 1994, is retiring after more than two decades on the nation's highest court.

Breyer's retirement gives President Biden his first opportunity to name a new justice to the court. During the 2020 campaign, he pledged to name an African American woman if he got the chance. The two leading contenders are said to be federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was on President Barack Obama's shortlist for the court in 2016, and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, who served as assistant, and then deputy solicitor general in both Democratic and Republican administrations prior to her nomination to California's highest court.

Both women are young, in terms of Supreme Court appointment. Brown Jackson is 51 and Kruger is 45.

Wnctimes by Marjorie Farrington