I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Thursday, January 27.

Well, by now you know that Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring. We will talk in this segment about his legacy and who might replace him.

Justice Breyer was a guest on this show in 2011. I listened back to that segment yesterday and

heard something that turns out to be really relevant today to the rule of law in January 6th.

Breyer was recalling 11 years ago one of the most controversial decisions of his time on the

bench, Bush versus Gore, in the year 2000, which stopped the recount of the very close vote in

Florida that the Gore campaign had wanted. It was what Gore did when he lost that case

that Breyer wanted to talk about, this begins with the end of my

question. And I guess you marvel there at what Mr. Gord did after that decision, right?

I think he said don't trash the court. And just as interestingly enough after the Guantanamo

decisions, President Bush said, I'll

follow that decision. It was against him. He said, I don't have to agree with it. And there are

really 200 years of history that go behind that. What I've heard most interesting, think,

I was in dissent in Bush-Figuor. So I thought it was wrong. A lot of people thought it

was wrong. It was

certainly unpopular. At least half the country thought, you know, very unpopular. And I heard Senator

Harry Reid, the majority leader in the Senate, say the following. And I agree with this completely.

He said the most remarkable part of that decision is very rarely remarked,

despite its unpopularity. And I think he probably thinks it was wrong. I certainly did.

Despite all that, people did follow it. They did not throw sticks or rocks in the street. They did not shoot themselves.

They did not have riots where people street. They did not shoot themselves. They did not have riots where people died.

They did not have riots where people died after the Supreme Court made the final decision,

...