"You can have many different selection systems, but the bottom line has to be a system that, once the judge takes office that judge will feel that he or she is to decide the case without reference to the popular thing or the popular will of the moment"
About this Quote
Breyer is defending a paradox at the heart of democracy: the public gets to build the courthouse, but it should not get to sit in the jury box of every case. The line is deliberately plainspoken, almost managerial, because the real argument is about legitimacy. You can argue all day about elections versus appointments, commissions versus confirmations. Breyer waves that procedural food fight away and goes hunting for the nonnegotiable: once a judge is in the chair, the job is to become boringly indifferent to the crowd.
The key phrase is "without reference". He is not just warning against corruption or bribery; he is warning against popularity as a form of pressure. "The popular thing" and "the popular will of the moment" are his way of naming the most seductive kind of interference: the stuff that feels like common sense when it is trending, and like shame when history looks back. The subtext is that constitutional rights are often least protected when they are least liked, and that courts exist precisely to slow the national heartbeat when it starts racing toward punishment, panic, or payback.
Context matters: Breyer spent decades as a liberal pragmatist on a Court increasingly framed as partisan. His insistence on independence reads as both institutional self-defense and a plea for civic maturity. He is telling voters and politicians: argue fiercely about who becomes a judge, but don’t demand that judges behave like politicians after the fact. If they do, the law becomes a real-time poll, and rights become a temporary grant.
The key phrase is "without reference". He is not just warning against corruption or bribery; he is warning against popularity as a form of pressure. "The popular thing" and "the popular will of the moment" are his way of naming the most seductive kind of interference: the stuff that feels like common sense when it is trending, and like shame when history looks back. The subtext is that constitutional rights are often least protected when they are least liked, and that courts exist precisely to slow the national heartbeat when it starts racing toward punishment, panic, or payback.
Context matters: Breyer spent decades as a liberal pragmatist on a Court increasingly framed as partisan. His insistence on independence reads as both institutional self-defense and a plea for civic maturity. He is telling voters and politicians: argue fiercely about who becomes a judge, but don’t demand that judges behave like politicians after the fact. If they do, the law becomes a real-time poll, and rights become a temporary grant.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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