From Politico's Breaking News:
"The Supreme Court’s oldest member — Justice Stephen Breyer — plans to retire ... giving President Joe Biden his first, highly coveted opportunity to nominate a member of the nation’s top court."
The news of Breyer's retirement is a combination of both the expected and unexpected. For some time now he's been under immense pressure from assorted liberal camps to let loose of his seat, so that President Biden can nominate a rational human being to the Court before nature has its way, under less politically salubrious circumstances, with the 83-year-old justice. Yet Breyer has, till now, resisted liberal entreaties — and rather adamantly.
Politico notes that "Breyer’s resignation is welcome news for many Democrats and left-leaning attorneys," even though it's "unlikely to have a dramatic impact on the court’s decidedly conservative bent."
I doubt Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is comfortable with that "unlikelihood" prognosis. Biden's probable, young Black woman nominee "is very likely to serve for decades," adds the Times. McConnell knows that, just as McConnell knows that nature could also have its way with any right-winging justice at any time. Life is a crapshoot, as they say, and McConnell is no gambler. He's a fixer.
Thus time is of the greatest urgency for Senate Democrats. What hijinks might Mitch pull to delay, delay, delay the confirmation of Biden's nominee? This grimmest of reapers is full of surprises; this time, though, perhaps not that surprising. The midterms are coming up, so my guess is that he'll commence — or rather re-commence — outlandish complications by arguing that only the newly elected Senate should confirm a new justice.
You know, "the will of the people" and all those other Americanisms in which McConnell hasn't the faintest interest. Power, though, he's rather keen on.
***
In a lengthier update, the Times reports that "Republicans can take some steps to try to slow down the process ... including demanding that all members be physically present in the chamber to conduct business; forcing roll-call votes; and boycotting the Judiciary Committee vote to force the majority party to break Senate rules to advance the nominee. Those delay tactics could slow down the confirmation by a matter of hours or even days, but not block it."
That's an optimistic take on a Biden nomination — one I'm not sure of, not when contemplating the McConnell art of political shenanigans. (Democrats', too; just in another form: utter chaos.)
"McConnell did not weigh in on Wednesday with his views on the coming vacancy.... He said it was too early to know what his party’s response would be." Translation: He hasn't yet decided how to sabotage this thing.
One possibility: "Senate officials said the 11-11 split on the [Judiciary] panel because of the evenly divided Senate could create difficulties of its own and that research was already underway on how to address some potential problems, such as making sure Republicans are not able to block action by refusing to participate."