Posted on 03/19/2024 12:35:33 PM PDT by Twotone
Former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer criticized his colleagues on the high court over their interpretation of the Constitution.
The former justice, who retired in 2022, is set to release a book titled Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism, laying out an argument critiquing the methods used by many Republican-appointed justices to interpret the Constitution.
“Recently, major cases have come before the court while several new justices have spent only two or three years at the court,” Breyer said in the book, according to the New York Times. “Major changes take time, and there are many years left for the newly appointed justices to decide whether they want to build the law using only textualism and originalism.”
The argument between “living Constitution” and textualist interpretations isn’t a new one. But Breyer laid out three major concerns with originalism, questioning the qualifications of Supreme Court justices to do some of the work required to determine what a text’s original authors intended.
“First, it requires judges to be historians — a role for which they may not be qualified — constantly searching historical sources for the ‘answer’ where there often isn’t one there,” Breyer wrote in the book. “Second, it leaves no room for judges to consider the practical consequences of the constitutional rules they propound. And third, it does not take into account the ways in which our values as a society evolve over time as we learn from the mistakes of our past.”
Breyer told the New York Times how he shared similar approaches to interpreting the Constitution as former Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, David Souter, and Anthony Kennedy, all of whom were appointed by Republican presidents, attempting to contrast recent appointments by GOP presidents.
“Sandra, David — I mean, the two of them, I would see eye to eye not necessarily in the result in every case, but just the way you approach it,” Breyer said. “And Tony, too, to a considerable degree.”
He also took issue with the court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, one of the final cases he oversaw before retiring from the high court, arguing that there were too many questions at hand with abortion.
“There are too many questions,” Breyer said. “Are they really going to allow women to die on the table because they won’t allow an abortion which would save her life? I mean, really, no one would do that. And they wouldn’t do that. And there’ll be dozens of questions like that.”
Breyer has previously spoken out against the Dobbs decision, saying he tried to persuade against overturning Roe v. Wade.
“Was I happy about it? Not for an instant. Did I do everything I could to persuade people? Of course, of course,” Breyer told CNN’s Chris Wallace in September.
The only one on the left wing who appeared to be an intellectual was RBG. She was a friend of Scalia and they went on trips together.
He did not name having common sense as a requirement.
Ketanji Brown Jackson does not know what a women is or believes in the 1st Amendment.
Breyer:
Your Last Will and Testament, your history and your original intent, are toast BECAUSE WE SAY SO, and WE should not be required to understand them.
SO WE will decide your will and narrate OUR VERSION of your “intent.”
That's what Article V is for.
I guess the process is too cumbersome for Breyer. He'd rather have five black-robed people change the Constitution instead of 359 members of Congress and 38 state legislatures.
-PJ
What a maggot.
“Human nature hasn’t changed one iota in 5000 years.”
That is the secret.
Sociopaths have always sought to rule—and freedom loving individuals have had to resist as best they could.
Breyer is one of the sociopaths.
Clinton appointed the biased loser Breyer... Odd how the press tries to bury that VERY IMPORTANT PIECE OF INFORMATION... maybe it’s because they’re corrupt democrats who hate half the American people too...
He’s exactly the type who should never be a law professor. We have too many like that now.
these little gods deciding that one set of people can be discriminated against....
"Build the law"??? Is this an admission or an assumption of entitlement? What Supreme Law allows a SCOTUS Justice to a legislative function? Did he learn about the Separation of Powers in school?
“Build the law”
Just like Bible, we need to spend more time with the original source.
If they’re not originalists, then they’re acting as legislators, a job for which they were not appointed. It’s not complicated. He uses “pragmatism” as a weasel word for judicial arrogance and arrogation of power.
I’d hate to be this guy when standing before Jesus at his particular judgement. He will have much to answer for. Pray that he repents before he dies.
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