According to reporting from NBC News, United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring.
The retirement will allow President Joe Biden to name a replacement to the nation’s highest court.
During the 2020 campaign, Biden 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 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,” NPR reports.
“Breyer has told several people who’ve made unofficial efforts to push him to retire that he thinks the confirmation process shouldn’t be political, according to people told of those discussions, and Democrats worry he’d remain as an act of resistance to show he’s not bowing to politics,” CNN reported in December.
“It has always been the decision of any Supreme Court Justice if and when they decide to retire, and how they want to announce it, and that remains the case today,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Twitter.
“We have no additional details or information to share from @WhiteHouse,” she tweeted.
It has always been the decision of any Supreme Court Justice if and when they decide to retire, and how they want to announce it, and that remains the case today. We have no additional details or information to share from @WhiteHouse
— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) January 26, 2022