来源：《洛杉矶时报》
原文刊登日期：2022年1月26日
Justice Stephen G. Breyer has made many rulings during a long and distinguished career, but his most important may turn out to be the one reported Tuesday: He will retire from the U.S. Supreme Court at the end of its current term in June, allowing President Biden to nominate his replacement, and a Senate barely controlled by Democrats to confirm the appointment.
在漫长而杰出的职业生涯中，大法官斯蒂芬·g·布雷耶做出了许多裁决，但他最重要的裁决可能是周二报道的那个：他将在今年6月本届美国最高法院审理期结束时退休，这将允许拜登总统提名接替他的人选，而民主党勉强控制的参议院也将批准这一任命。
The issue of timing has hounded Breyer, a liberal justice, for more than year. At 83, he’s now the oldest justice by a decade and has served on the court for more than 27 years. The question many observers asked was whether he would step down before the looming midterm election, when Republicans could take control of the Senate.
退休时机问题已经困扰布雷耶这位自由派大法官一年多了。现年83岁的他是十年来年龄最大的大法官，在最高法院任职超过27年。许多观察人士提出的问题是，他是否会在中期选举前辞职，中期选举后共和党可能将控制参议院。
Political partisanship ought to make little difference to the court’s composition, but the sorry fact is that it does. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell last year said that if Republicans took back the Senate, it would be “highly unlikely” that any Biden nominee would be confirmed.
政治党派之争本应对最高法院的组成没有什么影响，但令人遗憾的事实是它起了作用。参议院少数党领袖麦康奈尔去年曾表示，如果共和党夺回参议院，拜登的任何提名都“极不可能”得到批准。
That approach continues the increasing politicization of the court, which has ramped up to extreme levels during McConnell’s tenure as Senate majority leader, first in 2016 when he refused to even consider President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland on the specious argument that it was a presidential election year and any appointment should hold until there was a new president. Yet when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020, with Donald Trump in the White House and just weeks before a presidential election, McConnell moved quickly to confirm the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s third Supreme Court appointment.
这种做法继续使最高法院日益政治化，在麦康奈尔担任参议院多数党领袖期间，这种政治化已经达到了极端的程度，第一次是在2016年，当时他拒绝考虑奥巴马总统对梅里克•加兰德的提名，理由是当年是总统选举年，任何任命都应该等到新总统上任。然而，当大法官露丝·巴德·金斯伯格于2020年9月去世时，当时唐纳德·特朗普主政白宫，距离总统大选只有几周时间，麦康奈尔迅速采取行动，批准了对艾米·科尼·巴雷特的提名，这是特朗普任内任命的第三个最高法院大法官。
Regard for the court as a nonpartisan institution that rules according to the law and the Constitution, and not partisan loyalties, has suffered. Calls for Breyer to retire while Democrats control the White House and Congress are unseemly, as they were for Ginsburg, but understandable.
尊重最高法院作为一个根据法律和宪法而非党派忠诚进行裁决的无党派机构，这种观念已经受到了损害。要求布雷耶在民主党控制白宫和国会期间退休是不得体的，就像共和党在金斯伯格去世后所做的那样，但可以理解。
This problem could be resolved in part by limiting the justices’ terms to 18 years. That would permit a predictable schedule of presidential appointments.
这个问题可以通过将大法官的任期限制在18年来部分解决。这将使一个可预测的总统任命时间表成为可能。
In the meantime, Republicans could fix some of the damage caused to the court and the confirmation process by supporting any qualified Biden nominee.
与此同时，共和党人可以通过支持任何合格的拜登提名人选，来弥补对最高法院和批准程序造成的一些损害。
And Biden, for his part, should swiftly nominate Breyer’s successor, allowing the confirmation process to move forward well in advance of the midterm election.
就拜登而言，他应该迅速提名布雷耶的继任者，让批准程序在中期选举前顺利进行。
Breyer’s retirement won’t reverse either the destructive partisanship that has undermined the court or the court’s increasingly conservative political orientation. He is a liberal, although by no means a leftist progressive, and Biden will likely choose someone with a similar outlook to replace him. But the timing of his retirement means that, at least for now, the partisanship is unlikely to get much worse.
布雷耶的退休既不会改变损害最高法院的破坏性党派之争，也不会改变最高法院日益保守的政治倾向。虽然不是左派激进分子，但他是自由主义者，拜登很有可能会选择与他世界观相似的人来接替他。但他退休的时机意味着，至少就目前而言，党派之争不太可能变得更糟。