Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has told President Donald Trump that he will retire effective July 31, 2018.
*This is a breaking story. Stay tuned for more information.
Here is his profile on the Supreme Court website:
Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice, was born in Sacramento, California, July 23, 1936. He married Mary Davis and has three children. He received his B.A. from Stanford University and the London School of Economics, and his LL.B. from Harvard Law School. He was in private practice in San Francisco, California from 1961–1963, as well as in Sacramento, California from 1963–1975. From 1965 to 1988, he was a Professor of Constitutional Law at the McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. He has served in numerous positions during his career, including a member of the California Army National Guard in 1961, the board of the Federal Judicial Center from 1987–1988, and two committees of the Judicial Conference of the United States: the Advisory Panel on Financial Disclosure Reports and Judicial Activities, subsequently renamed the Advisory Committee on Codes of Conduct, from 1979–1987, and the Committee on Pacific Territories from 1979–1990, which he chaired from 1982–1990. He was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1975. President Reagan nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat February 18, 1988.
Kennedy, though a conservative, was generally thought of as the swing vote on the Court. He sided with his liberal counterparts on issues like abortion and gay marriage. He wrote the opinion for the Obergefell v Hodges case in 2015 that overturned the ban on gay marriage.
Democrats not happy:
More than likely Trump will pick a justice that will make the court lean more conservative as he vowed in the past “to pick nominees who are in the mold of the late Justice Antonin Scalia.” Leonard Leo, the outside advisor to the President for Judicial Nominations said:
“President Trump’s list of potential nominees for this vacancy includes many of the very best judges in America, judges who have records of being fair and independent and applying the Constitution as it was written. I expect the nominee to be like Justice Gorsuch, to demonstrate excellence in every respect, and to earn widespread support from the American people, and bipartisan support for confirmation in the Senate.”
The White House website has Trump’s SCOTUS list. A few prominent names are Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Judge Don Willett, a United States Circuit Judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Ed Whelan, the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, thinks Trump will pick his nominee next month, which gives the Senate Judiciary Committee time to have a hearing in August since Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) canceled all but a week of the August recess. A vote could happen in September and that would give us a new justice in time for the next term in October.
Looks like McConnell had that in mind:
Judicial Crisis Network has launched the campaign #AnotherGreatJustice targeted at liberal senators.
[Featured image via Wikimedia Commons]
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