Widespread media reports in the US said that Justice Stephen Breyer will retire from the Supreme Court.
If the rumours prove to be true, US President Joe Biden will get the opportunity to fulfil one of his campaign pledges and nominate the first Black woman judge to the SC bench.
Not only would that nomination be a landmark one in the apex court's history, it would also provide a much-needed boost to the liberal wing of the US Supreme Court.
The bench is currently dominated by a conservative super-majority due to former President Donald Trump's nominations of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Justice Breyer is 83 years old and has been repeatedly asked by Democrats, especially the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, to retire soon, The Guardian reported.
Not doing so would risk his departure coming at a time when the Senate is back in the hands of the Republicans, given that the mid-term elections are scheduled to take place later in the year 2022.
Having spent more than twenty years in the liberal wing of the US SC, Breyer has been its senior-most member since Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020.
Biden, therefore, would face the threat of his nominees being blocked, since it takes 51 votes – a simple majority – in the Senate to confirm a Supreme Court Justice.
Born in California, Justice Breyer was nominated by former president Bill Clinton in 1994, and was confirmed to the Supreme Court with strong support in the Senate from both parties.
Hillary Clinton, who has served as Secretary of State of the US government and who was also the unsuccessful 2016 presidential nominee from the Democratic Party, tweeted her thanks to Justice Breyer.
(With inputs from The Guardian.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)