Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said on June 28 he plans to retire after three decades as a pivotal vote on the highest U.S. judicial body, giving President Donald Trump an opportunity to make the court more firmly conservative.
The conservative Justice Kennedy, who turns 82 in July 2018, and is the second-oldest justice on the nine-member court, has become one of the most consequential American jurists since joining the court in 1988 as an appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan. He proved instrumental in advancing gay rights, buttressing abortion rights and erasing political spending limits. His retirement takes effect on July 31, the court said.
“It has been the greatest honour and privilege to serve our nation in the federal judiciary for 43 years, 30 of those years on the Supreme Court,” Justice Kennedy said in a statement.
The statement issued by the court said that Justice Kennedy’s decision was motivated by his decision to spend more time with his family.
“He is a man that I’ve known for a long time and a man that I’ve respected for a long time. He’s been a great justice of the Supreme Court. He’s a man ... who has displayed tremendous vision, and tremendous heart, and he will be missed,” U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters in the White House Oval Office.
Mr. Trump said he will begin a search immediately for a new justice, with a list of 25 candidates.
President Donald Trump speaks to the media at the Oval Office on June 27, 2018 regarding the announcement that Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy will retire at the end of July.
Justice Kennedy is a traditional conservative who sometimes joined the liberal justices on key rulings, earning a reputation as the court’s “swing” vote who heartened conservatives and liberals alike, depending on the issue. His retirement was disclosed on the final day of the court’s current term, which began in October.
Juistice Kennedy on June 26 joined the court’s four other conservatives in giving Mr. Trump a huge legal victory by upholding the Republican President’s travel ban targeting people from several Muslim-majority countries. On June 27, he joined his fellow conservative justices in a 5-4 ruling that dealt a major setback to organised labour by shutting off a key union revenue source.
Mr. Trump already has left an imprint on the court, restoring its 5-4 conservative majority with the appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017 after the President’s fellow Republicans in the Senate in 2016 refused to consider Democratic former President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.
While Justice Kennedy’s replacement will not change the numerical ideological balance on the court, Mr. Trump could appoint a justice who would be more staunchly conservative than Justice Kennedy and less likely to occasionally side with the court’s liberal wing. The move could also mean that conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, as the most centrist of the court’s current conservatives, will become the decisive vote in certain cases.
While Justice Kennedy sided with conservative colleagues on many issues and authored the landmark 2010 ruling that allowed unlimited corporate spending in political campaigns, his tenure also included strong support for the liberal cause of gay rights.
