On Thursday, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia (D) spoke about his potential support for a Supreme Court nominee, noting that he would be willing to support a person who has more liberal beliefs than he holds.
As Politico reported, Manchin spoke about the nomination process in an interview with West Virginia MetroNews’ “Talkline.”
He said, “Whoever he puts up will have experience and we’ll be able to judge them off of that. But as far as just the philosophical beliefs, no, that will not prohibit me from supporting somebody.”
Manchin said, “I’m looking forward to whoever that person is going to be, make sure that the rule of law is the Bible that they go by…”
When asked about voting for a person who is more liberal than he is, Manchin said, “It’s not going to change the makeup of the court. The court right now is pretty much a 6-3 court.”
“So no matter what the philosophical beliefs of this person may be, that’s not going to change the decisions or the makeup of it,” he noted.
“What you want is someone — forget the philosophical beliefs they may have — is basically how they have dispersed justice, their record, have they been outspoken, [have] they been fair…are they able to get along with the other eight justices,” he added.
“It’s not too hard to get more liberal than me,” he said, chuckling. “So it would not bother me having a person who was sound in their thought process and been sound in their dispersement of justice and the rule of law.”
Justice Stephen Breyer will formally announce his retirement from the Supreme Court. Manchin supported 2 of the 3 nominees from Donald Trump. Manchin talks about whether or not he will support President Biden's nominee to @HoppyKercheval. WATCH: https://t.co/yCFQ3nm85Y pic.twitter.com/HHp8Mrom7Y
— MetroNews (@WVMetroNews) January 27, 2022
On Wednesday, it was reported that Justice Stephen Breyer would be retiring from the Supreme Court. The news broke before the Supreme Court Justice made the announcement himself, and President Joe Biden spoke briefly about the report without making full comments.
On Thursday, as The Daily Wire reported, “President Joe Biden joined Justice Stephen Breyer for a joint announcement about the justice’s imminent retirement, and Breyer offered a statement denoting his faith that the ‘American experiment’ would continue to succeed under the next generation.”
Biden spoke about his plan to carry out his campaign promise to nominate the first black woman to the Supreme Court.
Breyer then delivered remarks, saying, “I thought about what I might say to you and something I enjoy is talking to a high school students and grammar school students, college students and even law school students. They will come around and ask me, what does is it that you find particularly meaningful about your job and what gives you a thrill? That’s not such a tough question for me to answer.”
Breyer said that after hearing lots of cases, the one item that was always obvious was that the United States of America is a “complicated country.”
“And it’s every race, every religion and she would emphasize this, and it’s every point of view possible. It’s a kind of miracle when you sort of see all those people in front of you and yet they have decided to help solve their major differences under law,” Breyer continued, pulling out a pocket Constitution. “The people that have come to accept this Constitution, they come to accept the importance of the rule of law.”