Ankush Khardori writes:

When Justice Stephen Breyer stepped down from the Supreme Court in 2022, he left the court with a record of accomplishment — but a legal approach that has been battered.

With former President Donald Trump’s three appointees on the bench, the court was firmly in the hands of conservative justices whose theories of constitutional and statutory interpretation differed fundamentally from that of the liberal Breyer. Their methods have already upended American law in recent years in a variety of areas, including, most notably, abortion — a subject to which the court will return on Tuesday, when it hears arguments over the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone.

In a new book that comes out on the day of the argument and in an interview with POLITICO Magazine, Breyer hits hard at the approach of his conservative former colleagues and sounds a public alarm.

If the court continues to deploy their methods of interpretation, Breyer told me, “We will have a Constitution that no one wants.” It’s a remarkable statement from a former Supreme Court justice. [Continue reading…]