she had already been serving as a district -- on the district court. and what we know about next term is that one of the biggest cases they're going to hear is an affirmative action case. so it's true that here we'll see a liberal replacing a liberal, but the new nominee is likely to be much younger. maybe more liberal than breyer. and will change the inner dynamics of the court. breyer will remain for the rest of this term which is right now considering some of the biggest issues of the day considering roe v. wade. he'll be there when that's decided some time in july. >> obviously there are still some six months left in the term as jessica pointed out. and so this is an early announcement. why do you think he made this announcement so early, ariane? >> it's interesting because a lot of progressives had been pressuring him last term to step