The retirement of Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), the second-ranked Democrat in the upper chamber, is likely to usher in a new era of confrontation on the prominent Judiciary Committee.

Political battles waged over the nation’s court system and presidential judicial nominees often begin on the panel. And the decision by Durbin, its top Democrat, to end his decadeslong political career at the end of his fifth term opens the door in 2027 for a more liberal replacement than the mild-mannered Illinois senator.

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That person is likely to be Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who’s long eyed a spot atop the committee and is next in line based on seniority.

“Dick Durbin is from an earlier era, where Democrat and Republican senators can disagree ferociously and still have dinner together and get along,” said Mike Davis, former chief counsel for nominations to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and founder of conservative judicial advocacy group Article III Project. “Dick Durbin is extremely effective. He comes across as Midwest-nice and reasonable, but he is a very effective Democrat savage.”

Davis had very different feelings about Whitehouse, whom he called a “partisan clown who’s constantly peddling conspiracy theories and hypocrisy on racial justice.”

A Senate GOP aide similarly criticized Whitehouse as “totally unserious,” pointing to his focus on climate change-related hearings when he chaired the Senate Budget Committee under former President Joe Biden.

The 69-year-old Whitehouse isn’t far off in age to Durbin, who’s 80. But the Rhode Island senator has taken a harder line as the No. 2 Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, which has Republicans bracing for a more combative working environment, while Durbin has prioritized collegiality, measured approaches, and the Senate norms of bipartisanship.  

Whitehouse garners more support from the progressive wing, which called for him to be installed as chairman rather than Durbin in 2021 after the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein was effectively blocked from the role by leadership over her declining mental health.

A similar debate resurfaced just months ago, when Durbin was relegated from chairman to ranking member under the new Republican majority.

“I think most folks in the sort of progressive ecosystem and folks who’ve been advocating for more aggressive court reform, both at the Supreme Court and across the court structure, would be very happy to see Sen. Whitehouse take up the ranking membership,” said Joseph Van Wye, a senior government affairs strategist with liberal advocacy group Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “He’s been a really great advocate for more robust reform of the courts [and] more scrutiny of potential issues of corruption, whether it’s financial or ideological.”

Whitehouse did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Jennifer Rubin, a left-leaning opinion writer for the Washington Post, penned an op-ed making the case that Senate Democrats “picked the wrong senator for Senate Judiciary leadership.” Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law professor and former adviser to former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, was quoted as calling Durbin a “distinct disappointment” and “lackluster leader” who presented a “far weaker choice than Senator Whitehouse would have been as ranking member.”

“I don’t think it’s a surprise to hear that we wish Durbin had done more,” Van Wye said, reflecting on the retiring Democrat’s tenure. “I think there were things that were left on the table.”

Durbin made no mention Wednesday in a video statement announcing his retirement of the forthcoming power struggles to fill his roles as whip and on the Judiciary Committee or the possibly messy primary fight to replace him as an Illinois senator.

He went only so far as to say the party was “fortunate to have a strong Democratic bench ready to serve. We need them now more than ever.”

Durbin has long balanced liberal demands with political reality, particularly in the context of constraints presented by the 60-vote filibuster and risks of fueling GOP retaliation.

His elevation to the role in 2021 was met with resistance from some in the party over the belief he’d wield an unfair amount of influence as caucus whip and ranking member of one of the Senate’s most high-profile committees. In the majority last year, Durbin managed pressures from the left to take a more aggressive stance on alleged ethical lapses by the Supreme Court’s conservative justices. He rebuffed extreme demands like subpoenaing them to testify to Congress.

“They better sit down and understand the Senate rules,” Durbin said at the time of progressives, “and I think they’ll see there’s a limitation on the Senate side you don’t find on the House side.”

In addition to subpoenas, progressives wanted Durbin to embrace more forceful PR tactics to compel testimony, animated responses to Chief Justice John Roberts declining to voluntarily answer questions, public hearings, and rigorous pursuits of bills to rein in perceived abuses of power on the court.

“There were ways where we would have liked to have seen more aggressive oversight and more intense pursuit of reform of the court,” Van Wye said.

Davis, the former counsel to Grassley, suggested Democrats like Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE) or Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) would be more effective Durbin replacements than Whitehouse.

“The Judiciary Committee will simply be an HR department for judges and Justice Department officials,” Davis said.

DURBIN ANNOUNCES SENATE RETIREMENT, CLEARING WAY FOR LEADERSHIP SHAKE-UP

Republicans on the panel will be in for a modest shake-up of their own.

Grassley, the current Judiciary Committee chairman and oldest member of Congress at 91, is serving his final two-year stint at the helm of the panel under Senate Republican rules term-limiting committee leadership roles. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the chairman of the Budget Committee, is expected to return as Judiciary Committee chairman, a position he previously held in President Donald Trump’s first term.