Live Updates: Biden Expected to Announce Breyer’s Retirement From Supreme Court

“President Biden’s nominee will receive a prompt hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and will be considered and confirmed by the full United States Senate with all deliberate speed,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said on Wednesday after plans for Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s departure became public.

Democrats could confirm a successor to Justice Breyer without any Republican support under Senate rules that shield a Supreme Court nomination from a filibuster, but they must remain firmly united to do so.

With the Senate evenly split, Vice President Kamala Harris could be called upon to break a tie vote over any nominee, giving Democrats the upper hand as long as all of the members who usually vote with them rally behind whomever the president chooses.

But even with the numbers and the rules working in their favor, Democrats are well aware that they have a narrow path and that plans could go awry. They are wary of Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, who has previously bedeviled Democrats on high court fights and is known for finding novel ways to use the chamber’s rules to his advantage, even when they appear stacked against him.

His promise also underscores how much Black women have struggled to become part of a very small pool of elite judges in the nation’s higher federal courts. Speculation on Wednesday focused on a rarefied group of Black women who have elite educations and experience on the bench.

The short list included Ketanji Brown Jackson, a 51-year-old judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit who graduated from Harvard Law School and clerked for Justice Breyer, and Leondra R. Kruger, a 45-year-old justice on the California Supreme Court who graduated from Yale Law School and clerked for former Justice John Paul Stevens.

J. Michelle Childs, 55, a little-known Federal District Court judge in South Carolina whom Mr. Biden recently nominated for an appeals court, is also seen as a potential contender. One of Mr. Biden’s top congressional allies, Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, told Mr. Biden during the presidential campaign that he believed she should be appointed, in part because she came from a blue-collar background, another underrepresented group among federal judges.

Judge Jackson and Justice Kruger attended Ivy League law schools, unlike Judge Childs, who attended the University of South Carolina. And while there are some differences in the women’s backgrounds and experience, they are united in being among a relative handful of Black women who have the kind of credentials normally considered qualifications for the Supreme Court.

The first Black woman to serve as a federal appeals court judge — an experience that in the modern era is usually a key credential in becoming a justice — was appointed by President Gerald R. Ford in 1975. By the time Mr. Biden took office more than 40 years later, only seven more had served in such a position.

But once Justice Breyer’s decision is formalized, Mr. Biden will be free to make good on the promise he made as a candidate in 2020. Fighting for the Democratic nomination, he pledged to be the first president to select a Black woman for a life appointment to the court.

That decision of whom to nominate as a replacement for Justice Breyer, a liberal jurist, will not affect the ideological balance on the court, where conservatives hold a 6-to-3 majority. But Mr. Biden — who has said repeatedly that he views efforts to promote diversity as a big part of his legacy — is poised to make a historic and long-lasting imprint on what the court looks like.

The president is unlikely to announce his choice on Thursday despite having had more than a year to privately discuss and debate candidates with his top advisers. It is traditional to let attention be focused on the legacy of the outgoing justice before engaging fully on a debate over a replacement.

Still, speculation has already focused on three Black jurists seen as the most likely candidates. They are Ketanji Brown Jackson, a 51-year-old judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; Leondra R. Kruger, a 45-year-old justice on the California Supreme Court; and J. Michelle Childs, 55, a Federal District Court judge in South Carolina whom Mr. Biden recently nominated for a judgeship on a federal appeals court.

Mr. Biden could still pick someone else, and is not required to elevate someone who is already a judge, though that is by far the most common route to the Supreme Court. Some of the president’s predecessors have picked politicians, lawyers or law professors.

But the president is not expected to stray from his pledge to ensure that his pick is a Black woman. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, reaffirmed the pledge during a news briefing for reporters on Wednesday, after word of Justice Breyer’s decision was widely reported.

“The president has stated and reiterated his commitment to nominating a Black woman to the Supreme Court and certainly stands by that,” she said.

Here is a rundown of the age and tenure of the remaining members of the court:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who turns 67 on Thursday, was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2005 to replace Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. In his 16 years on the bench, the court has shifted from four reliably conservative votes to six, delivering the chief justice considerable power on a range of issues. In some cases, he has taken a moderate stance, joining with the court’s liberal bloc, and has often been forced into a public role defending the court’s independence.

Justice Clarence Thomas, nominated in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush, has been one of the court’s most steadfastly conservative members over the past three decades and set himself apart for his eagerness to revisit longstanding legal precedents. At 73, he will become both the court’s oldest and most senior member with Justice Breyer’s departure.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., 71, was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2006. By some measures, he is considered even more conservative than Justice Thomas. Especially in recent years, Justice Alito has grown more public about his conservative stance, telling an audience at the Federalist Society’s annual convention in 2020 that liberals posed a growing threat to religious liberty and freedom of speech.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2009, becoming the first woman of color on the Supreme Court. At 67, she would become the oldest member of the court’s liberal wing.

Justice Elena Kagan, 61, was President Obama’s second nominee to the court in 2010 after serving as his solicitor general, becoming one of only a few justices who had never served as a judge. Along with Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan has delivered the most reliably liberal votes among current members.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, 54, the first of President Donald J. Trump’s three nominees, was confirmed in 2017. Despite a strong conservative stance on most questions, Justice Gorsuch has swung left on select occasions, such as siding with gay and transgender workers in a 2020 case testing the reach of the Civil Rights Act.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, 56, was nominated by President Trump in 2018. Though widely noted for his conservative philosophy, Justice Kavanaugh last year surprised some observers by replacing Chief Justice Roberts at the court’s ideological center, voting with the majority in split decisions in 87 percent of cases.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett was nominated by President Trump in 2020 after a contentious fight to fill the seat previously held by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal. As an appeals court judge, Justice Barrett earned a reputation as profoundly conservative on issues including abortion and gun rights. She will turn 50 on Friday, making her both the youngest and the newest member of the court — at least for now.

On the importance of the court: “I think it is terribly important to have an institution where I see every kind of American, every race, every religion, every possible point of view. And they have decided to come into a courtroom to resolve their differences rather than through violence on the street.”

On lifetime appointments for Supreme Court Justices: “I actually think if you were doing it afresh, you wouldn’t need to have a lifetime appointment. The Constitution doesn’t actually say lifetime. It says they will have their office during good behavior, and that has been interpreted as lifetime. And as a very practical matter, I think you should have a long term, and the reason that you should have a long term is because you don‘t want the judge sitting there thinking what is his next job going to be. That is just a thoroughly bad idea.”

On politicizing the Court, from “The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics” (2021): If the public comes to see judges as merely ‘politicians in robes,’ its confidence in the courts, and in the rule of law itself, can only decline,” With that, the Court’s authority can only decline, too, including its hard-won power to act as a constitutional check on the other branches.

On reading widely: “Law requires both a head and a heart. You need a good head to read all those words and figure out how they apply. But when you are representing human beings or deciding things that affect them, you need to understand, as best you can, the workings of human life.”

On the future: “One hundred years from now we will have recently inaugurated a president of the United States, following a free election the preceding November. I share that prediction and hope. It sounds unremarkable; yet that very fact — that it is unremarkable — suggests something unique about our society.”