Breyer’s Supreme Court Pragmatism Will Be Missed: Noah Feldman

The newson Wednesday of Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement from the Supreme Court at the end of this blockbuster term marks an historical transition point.

One of the great pragmatists in the court’s history, Breyer is the last of President Bill Clinton’s appointees to still be serving. Only Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, now remains from the centrist court that sat together for longer than any other configuration of justices in history.

That court was called the Rehnquist court for its chief justice, William Rehnquist, but it really reflected the judicial temperament shared by ...