Retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has pushed back against widespread claims that politics drives decision-making among the nation’s highest judges.
The 87-year-old, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, made his remarks during an appearance at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Breyer, who has taught at Harvard Law School since his retirement in 2022, said he does not believe any sitting justice is serving to advance a political agenda.
His comments came against a backdrop of declining public trust in the judiciary, which has fallen to near its lowest level in the half-century Gallup has measured it.
A majority of Americans now tell pollsters they believe the justices are guided more by politics than by law, a share that has roughly doubled in six years.
The court has also faced intense scrutiny over how it handles cases on its emergency docket and the Trump administration’s high win-rate in such petitions.
“I do not think there’s some kind of plot involved within the court to get this or that decided,” Breyer said, offering a direct rebuttal to critics who argue the court has become a political instrument.
Breyer’s remarks followed a New York Times report on leaked internal memos from the court’s 2016 decision to block an Obama-era emissions regulation before lower courts had ruled.
Breyer, who dissented in the 2016 case, dismissed the claims, saying he did not believe his colleagues were serving to “carry out some political agenda.”
He acknowledged a distinction between the politics of judicial appointments and the conduct of justices once they are seated on the bench.
“It’s politics when you’re appointing a new justice; every political group in the world” campaigns for their preferred nominee, he said.
“But once the judge is appointed, it’s different. The judge is thinking, what is the correct decision according to the law?” Breyer added.
He also cautioned against calls for the court to more fully explain its emergency docket rulings, warning it could lock justices into early positions before the factual record is fully developed.
“Once you’ve written, you are wedded — not a hundred percent, but pretty much,” Breyer said, adding that full briefing and arguments had not yet taken place in such instances.
Breyer warned that if Americans conclude the court is driven purely by politics and disengage, “what you will do is you will divorce the court from the life of the average person.”