Anthony Kennedy (1936- ) has been on the US Supreme Court since 1988. He will retire on July 31st 2018, the last of President Reagan’s judges on the Court. He was the swing vote in favour of stuff like gay rights, abortion, and affirmative action. President Trump will almost certainly appoint someone well to the right of him. The Democrats do not appear to have the votes in the Senate to stop it.
Anthony Kennedy is no relation of President John Kennedy.
Background: Kennedy is the son of a California lawyer and was part of the Stanford University class of 1958. President Ford put him the Ninth Circuit court in 1975 (the circuit courts are one step below the Supreme Court). Reagan, who knew Kennedy from when he was governor of California, put him on the Supreme Court in 1988 after failing to get the Senate to approve hard-right Robert Bork.
His son: Kennedy announced his retirement one week before news hit that his son, Justin Kennedy, was in charge of the part of Deutsche Bank that lent Trump $1 billion – at a time when most US banks were unwilling to lend money to Trump.
Not an originalist: Kennedy did not read the Constitution strictly according to the original intent of those who wrote it, many of them White slave owners from the 1700s. In overturning a Texas sodomy law in Lawrence v Texas (2003), for example, Kennedy wrote:
“They knew time can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws, once thought necessary and proper, in fact serve only to oppress.”
An originalist will likely take Kennedy’s place on the Court.
Libertarian: Kennedy believed in giving people as much freedom as possible. But since “corporations are people too,” he could favour gay men in one decision, and large companies in the next.
Swing vote: Some important cases where Kennedy was the swing vote, listed here from newest to oldest:
- Trump v Hawaii (2018) – in favour of the Muslim travel ban in the name of “national security” as determined by the president.
- Abbott v Perez (2018) – in favour of racial gerrymandering in Texas to “ensure Anglo control” (as a lower court put it).
- Obergefell v Hodges (2015) – in favour of same-sex marriage.
- Shelby County v Holder (2013) – in favour of gutting the Voting Rights Act of 1965, opening the way in the South to voter suppression and racial gerrymandering (see above). Kennedy apparently thought the South was no longer all that racist.
- Citizens United v Federal Election Commission (2010) – in favour of large companies pouring unlimited amounts of money into political campaigns in the name of “free speech”.
- Roper v Simmons (2005) – against capital punishment for children as “cruel and unusual punishment”.
- Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey (1992) – upheld the right to an abortion and struck down state laws that place a “substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.”
Now the Court will sickeningly lurch further to the right of that, with John Roberts as the new swing vote.
– Abagond, 2018.
Update: Trump has picked Brett Kavanaugh to replace Kennedy. He is well to the right:
See also:
- Southern Strategy – how we got here
- other posts on Supreme Court justices:
- Neil Gorsuch
- Antonin Scalia
- Sonia Sotomayor
- Brett Kavanaugh – Kennedy’s proposed replacement
- Trump v Hawaii
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
- gerrymandering
- voter suppression
- political left and right
566
More gifts for those who hated “H”!
Remember “anyone but “H”.
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Reproduction rights for women will be abolished. A woman’s right to choose will disappear.
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Just wondering where Antonin Scalia would fit on this.
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This is America. “H” lost because of the Electoral College. That and the fact she’s a warmongering shill of the corporations. Just ask the Libyans. The Electoral College has been in place since 1804. No Democrat or Republican has ever tried to overturn the 12th Amendment because it is used to keep the two wings of our ruling class in power. It’s all about keeping the”rabble” in their place.
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With an increased conservative grip on the Supreme Court, it’s official now, there will be no ‘going back’ to pre 9-11 U.S.
Which is pretty ironic. I mean these guys are called conservative after all.
Interesting era we’re living in.
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Well, technically the composition of the court hasn’t changed much because Scalia (replaced by Gorsuch) was conservative and Kennedy, despite going his own way on occasion, was conservative as well.
I think Ginsburg is the eldest liberal justice. She’ll certainly try to hold on until at least 2020, when she’ll be in her mid eighties. But let’s face it, anything can happen when people start pushing 90 so if Trump wins another term who knows, she might have to retire and he’d get another pick.
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I just read up on Brett Kavanaugh. It’s like Trump picked him specifically to irk the Clintons: he was involved in the Starr Report, the Vince Foster investigation, and the 2000 election Florida recount.
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He looks like he could be related to actor Dan Aykroyd.
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