Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's Thursday, January 27th. I'm Nyla Buddha. Here's what you

need to know today. The GOP forts Latino voters in Florida. But first, today's one big thing. How

Justice Breyer's retirement will reshape the Supreme Court and this year's elections.

News organizations are reporting that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is planning to retire at

the end of the current term. This gives President Biden his first chance to determine who's on the

high court and it's an opportunity to follow through on his campaign promise to appoint the

first black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. Here to explain what's next is Axios' resident

expert Sam Baker. Hey, Sam. Good morning, Nyla. Sam, I think the first thing we should start with is

how does Breyer's leaving change the composition of the court, especially given how much

recent conversation there's been about the politicization of the Supreme Court? His departure and

assuming Biden is able to replace him with another liberal justice will not change the overall

ideological makeup of the court. The two big effects here are, first of all,

preventing it from getting any worse for Democrats, right? If they're able to fill this seat with

someone who's younger than 83, then odds are that they'll be there for a while and so, you know,

Democrats, six, three, minority is unlikely to become a seven, two minority. And then the bigger

changes will play out over the longer term. That's where some of the differences with Breyer's

jurisprudence on, say, criminal justice, efforts to law enforcement, those sorts of things really

could come into play down the line. What do you think Breyer's legacy will be? I think his legacy

will be workman-like for lack of a better word. He didn't get the chance to write very many

big majority opinions. No liberals do. The biggest part of his legacy might be his retirement.

I mean, Ruth Bader Ginsburg left this incredibly long legacy as a pioneering trailblazing female

figure in the law, but her decision not to retire has ended up probably being, you know, the first

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