Authority on U. S. Supreme Court Available for Interviews
01/27/2022
Contact for media: Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944 or Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu
The retirement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will not shift the panel’s conservative majority but will open the door to empanel a justice with a different ideological view of the Constitution, according to a UMass Lowell expert available for interviews.
Breyer, 83, is expected to formally announce his retirement today after almost 30 years on the bench. In filling Breyer’s vacancy, President Joe Biden has promised to nominate the first Black woman justice to the bench.
“Breyer is not a strong ‘living constitutionalist’ – those who believe the Constitution should be understood in light of evolving public beliefs, or to a degree has been re-written by those beliefs,” said Morgan Marietta, a constitutional scholar and authority on the high court. “He’s likely to be replaced by someone more ideological or more bound to constitutional theory. The Court will maintain a 6-3 conservative majority in general but will likely have a higher number of 7-2 rather than 8-1 rulings, with potentially a strong advocate of a living Constitution on the left of the Court.”
Marietta is available to discuss:
- Breyer’s legacy as a Supreme Court justice;
- The likely short list of candidates Biden may nominate to replace him;
- Upcoming cases of significance the court will soon hear.
Marietta, an associate professor and the interim chair of UMass Lowell’s Political Science Department, is the editor of an annual volume on the major decisions of the Supreme Court and is the author of several books on American politics, most recently, “One Nation, Two Realities: Dueling Facts in American Democracy,” from Oxford University Press.
To arrange an interview with him via phone, email or Zoom (or another platform), contact Nancy Cicco at Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu.