Anthony Kennedy Is Retiring From The Supreme Court

The Republican Party has finally produced a compelling argument for participating in the 2018 midterm elections:

“Justice Anthony Kennedy announced Wednesday that he is retiring, giving President Trump a critical opportunity to move the Supreme Court more solidly to the right in what promises to be an epic confirmation fight.

The 81-year-old senior associate justice informed the White House in a letter of his intention to step down from the high court after 30 years, effective July 31. Rumors of another vacancy have reverberated across Washington in recent months, and it comes a year after Kennedy’s former law clerk Justice Neil Gorsuch, took over the seat occupied by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

Trump, reacting to the news, called Kennedy a “great justice” and said he’d begin the search for a replacement immediately. …”

Anthony Kennedy has been the most awful Supreme Court Justice of my lifetime. He is one of the fundamental reasons why I have been so cynical about politics.

I’ve sat here over the years and watched him vote for Lawrence v. Texas and Arizona v. United States. He cast the deciding swing vote in Fisher v. University of Texas, United States v. Windsor
in Obergefell v. Hodges. Whether it is sodomy, gay marriage, abortion, illegal immigration, disparate impact or affirmative action, Anthony Kennedy has long been one of the biggest problems in Washington. He has always been there casting the deciding vote in order to virtue signal to the media.

President Trump is going to pick Kennedy’s successor in the fall. It could decisively shift the balance of the Supreme Court on social issues. This is the ONLY reason that comes to mind that would justify holding your nose and voting for the Republican Party to control the Senate. It ought to be remembered though that Ronald Reagan created this problem by appointing Kennedy in the first place.

It was Republican presidents who nominated Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor and David Souter. A bad Supreme Court pick can have devastating long term consequences. We still don’t know how Neil Gorsuch or John Roberts is going to pan out in the long run. There is a strong possibility that John Roberts could start “evolving” and move into Anthony Kennedy’s vacated role as media darling.

We’re going to discuss the political theory behind the Supreme Court when we get to the Enlightenment. I’ve always hated this system of rule by judges appointed for life, but that is an argument for another day. In the meantime, Anthony Kennedy’s retirement and replacement on the Supreme Court is something to think about for disaffected voters who don’t care about anything else Trump has done in office.