Think Twice: Reading the Constitution with Justice Stephen Breyer

Open to Debate

Education, Society & Culture, News, Government, Politics

4.5 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court for almost three decades, Stephen Breyer was no stranger to hearing arguments for different sides in major cases. In this episode, our moderator-in-chief, John Donvan, and Chief Content Officer, Lia Matthow, interview Justice Breyer and discuss his book “Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, not Textualism.” He discusses how he used this philosophy to guide his decisions and why he thinks jurists should choose this approach. Our Guest: Stephen Breyer, Former United States Supreme Court Justice Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan and Lia Matthow, Chief Content Officer of Open to Debate, moderates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is open to debate.
0:07.1	Hi, everybody.
0:08.0	I'm John Donvan, and I am delighted to be joined once again by our chief content officer,
0:12.3	Leah Mathau.
0:13.3	Hey, John.
0:13.9	It's so great to be here.
0:15.1	It's great to have you back on the program, Leah.
0:16.8	And this is another in what we call our Think Twice series, and that is when, instead of bringing you a debate, as we most often do, we bring you a conversation around issues that are related to debate.
0:28.0	And it's a way to go deeper on some of the issues that matter to us at open to debate.
0:32.6	And this one is a very special interview.
0:35.6	Indeed it is.
0:36.5	It's a sit down with someone familiar with hearing
0:39.2	all sides of a contentious issue. You're keeping us in suspense. Former associate justice for the
0:45.2	Supreme Court, Stephen G. Breyer. He served on the bench for nearly 30 years from 1994 to 2022.
0:52.8	He is what in the TV news business, we would have called a major get. So we're
0:56.8	really, we're so excited to have him. Also, Supreme Court for us at open to debate has really been
1:02.1	a particular focus with so many cases being handed down over the years that have real life
1:06.3	consequences for people. And very often these decisions are right in the middle of important cultural and policy considerations that we like to debate.
1:14.1	Yeah, we've looked at executive power.
1:16.4	Abortion rights.
1:17.6	Free speech.
1:18.6	Second Amendment.
	...

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