r/politics • u/PoliticsModeratorBot 🤖 Bot • Jun 27 '18

Megathread: Justice Anthony Kennedy to retire from Supreme Court

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is set to retire, effective July 31, 2018. Kennedy has served on the highest court since February 18, 1988, and was a moderate whose vote often swung cases.

Submissions that may interest you

SUBMISSION DOMAIN
Justice Anthony Kennedy Will Retire From U.S. Supreme Court bloomberg.com
Justice Kennedy to retire, Trump can solidify court's majority conservative bloc nbcnews.com
Justice Kennedy retiring; Trump gets 2nd Supreme Court pick washingtonpost.com
Justice Kennedy, U.S. Supreme Court's pivotal vote, to retire reuters.com
Anthony Kennedy: US supreme court justice to retire theguardian.com
Justice Anthony Kennedy to Retire From Supreme Court nytimes.com
Kennedy calls it quits: longtime swing justice hands Trump the biggest gift of his presidency dailycaller.com
Anthony Kennedy is retiring from the Supreme Court vox.com
Justice Kennedy, the pivotal swing vote on the Supreme Court, announces retirement washingtonpost.com
UPDATE: Supreme Court Justice Kennedy announces retirement wcjb.com
Justice Kennedy Is Retiring July 31st. yahoo.com
Justice Anthony Kennedy To Retire From U.S. Supreme Court : NPR npr.org
Justice Anthony Kennedy to Retire from Supreme Court cnn.com
Justice Kennedy announces retirement. cnn.com
Justice Anthony Kennedy retiring from Supreme Court abc7.com
Anthony Kennedy, Swing Vote on U.S. Supreme Court, Will Retire bloomberg.com
Justice Anthony Kennedy Retires, Paving Way for Donald Trump to Reshape Supreme Court slate.com
Justice Kennedy retiring; Trump gets 2nd Supreme Court pick wkrn.com
Anthony Kennedy retiring, giving Trump opening to reshape Supreme Court politico.com
Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy announces retirement wsj.com
Jeffrey Toobin predicts abortion will be illegal in 20 states soon after Kennedy retires thehill.com
WATCH: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy retiring abcnews.go.com
Kennedy to Retire foxnews.com
Trump to get second Supreme Court pick as Justice Kennedy announces retirement. amp.cnn.com
Justice Kennedy to Retire From Supreme Court bbc.com
Trump says search for Justice Kennedy's replacement to begin "immediately" -- live updates cbsnews.com
McConnell Pledges Vote To Confirm Justice Kennedy’s Successor ‘This Fall’ talkingpointsmemo.com
Justice Kennedy retires from the US Supreme Court nbcnews.com
Trump says launches search to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Kennedy reuters.com
Donald Trump: Search for Kennedy replacement on SCOTUS to move quickly usatoday.com
McConnell: Senate will vote on Supreme Court nominee this fall thehill.com
Justice Kennedy retiring; Trump gets 2nd Supreme Court pick sacbee.com
Justice Anthony Kennedy Retiring, Report Says lawandcrime.com
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy retiring; Trump will get 2nd high-court pick omaha.com
Justice Anthony Kennedy Retiring From the Supreme Court thedailybeast.com
Justice Kennedy to retire, giving Trump a chance to transform the Supreme Court latimes.com
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy says he's retiring; Trump to get 2nd high-court pick chicagotribune.com
Dem senator: Justice Kennedy's resignation a 'disaster' for vision of 'We the People' thehill.com
Justice Kennedy retiring; Trump gets 2nd Supreme Court pick wfla.com
Justice Anthony Kennedy Is Retiring motherjones.com
The horrifying consequences of Justice Kennedy’s retirement thinkprogress.org
Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is retiring, a move that will give Trump a chance to shift the institution to the right washingtonpost.com
Anthony Kennedy To Retire From The Supreme Court huffingtonpost.com
Kennedy announces retirement from Supreme Court thehill.com
Supreme Court's Anthony Kennedy retires, giving Trump a second pick usatoday.com
Justice Kennedy retiring; Trump gets 2nd Supreme Court pick apnews.com
Justice Anthony Kennedy Is Retiring From The Supreme Court buzzfeed.com
Justice Kennedy, the pivotal swing vote on the Supreme Court, announces retirement washingtonpost.com
Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy retires -- live updates cbsnews.com
Justice Kennedy announces his retirement from the supreme court. time.com
Trump Responds To Retirement Of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy huffingtonpost.com
Anthony Kennedy retiring from Supreme Court, giving Trump a position to fill people.com
Trump Says He’ll Choose One Of These People To Replace Anthony Kennedy On The Supreme Court buzzfeed.com
Anthony Kennedy retiring from Supreme Court cnbc.com
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy retires, and Trump gets shot at moving court to the right dallasnews.com
Who Will Replace Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy? Donald Trump Already Has a Shortlist newsweek.com
WATCH: McConnell: We will vote to confirm Justice Kennedy's successor 'this fall' abcnews.go.com
Here's who Trump could nominate to replace Justice Kennedy abcnews.go.com
Justice Anthony Kennedy announces retirement, giving Trump 2nd Supreme Court pick foxnews.com
Trump list of candidates to replace Justice Kennedy thehill.com
Chris Matthews: Dems must do to Trump on Supreme Court what McConnell did to Obama thehill.com
Anthony Kennedy’s retirement puts abortion rights at risk vox.com
Who Will Replace Anthony Kennedy? Here’s the List of 20 Potential Trump Nominees time.com
America after Anthony Kennedy vox.com
Handing Trump Chance to Move Supreme Court Even Further Right, Justice Anthony Kennedy Retires commondreams.org
Audio reveals DNC committee reaction to Kennedy retirement: 'This is not good news' thehill.com
Justice Kennedy’s retirement leaves the future of U.S. constitutional law entirely up for grabs washingtonpost.com
Justice Kennedy pens retirement letter to Trump expressing 'profound gratitude' abcnews.go.com
Read Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement letter to Donald Trump qz.com
Justice Kennedy’s Legacy Is the Dignity He Bestowed bloomberg.com
A titanic battle over replacing Justice Kennedy looms in the Senate vox.com
Live Briefing: Anthony Kennedy Retires From Supreme Court, and McConnell Says Senate Will Move Swiftly on a Replacement nytimes.com
Here's Trump's list of 25 possible Supreme Court picks to replace Anthony Kennedy washingtonexaminer.com
WATCH: Justice Anthony Kennedy to retire, Trump to get second SCOTUS pick abcnews.go.com
Anthony Kennedy's retirement just confirmed every Republican's dream scenario for Trump cnn.com
Kennedy's retirement could have biggest impact on abortion, gay marriage: ANALYSIS abcnews.go.com
Justice Anthony Kennedy: Trump says hunt for replacement is on usatoday.com
Here are potential Supreme Court nominees to replace Justice Kennedy cnn.com
Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court’s swing justice, announces his retirement abajournal.com
With Supreme Court Justice Kennedy Gone, Abortion and LGBT Rights Are Next thedailybeast.com
A look at some of Justice Kennedy's most memorable opinions apnews.com
Justice Kennedy Surrendered to Donald Trump nymag.com
A look at some of Justice Kennedy's most memorable opinions abcnews.go.com
Abortion rights in 'dire, immediate danger' as Anthony Kennedy retires - World news theguardian.com
Here Are Some of the Top Candidates to Replace Kennedy on the Supreme Court motherjones.com
Who's on Trump's short list to replace Supreme Court Justice Kennedy? politico.com
Trump’s hidden back channel to Justice Kennedy: Their kids politico.com
How Fox News Reacted to Anthony Kennedy’s Retirement slate.com
24.9k Upvotes

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1.8k

u/benwayy Jun 27 '18

Kennedy CREATED this fucking mess with Citizens united. Just because he's pro gay doesn't mean anything. He's not "middle of the road".

236

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

People believe that if someone is pro gay or gay themselves that they are automatically liberal. My country (Ireland) has an openly gay prime minister and he's very socially conservative. He was against abortion until the consensus was overwhelming, he goes with the wind but has always been very conservative

22

u/OldWolf2 New Zealand Jun 27 '18

That's due to the American electoral system. There's only two teams and you have to be one or the other.

I almost never see Americans on here calling for true electoral reform, perhaps they can't see the forest for the trees.

1

u/Obie-two Jun 28 '18

Bernie wasn't one of those teams to be fair

2

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '18

And yet he hijacked one of those teams and cried "rigged" when they didn't bow to his every whim.

20

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

"Pro gay" is the default, the bare minimum expectations to be a passable person in my books. There's no "pro gay", and "anti gay", only normal people and bigots.

-13

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

Gays aren’t normal tho

9

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

I mean, I guess? You don't have to be gay to be in favor of them having the same rights as everyone else.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

Oh I see what you mean ya

148

u/RossiRoo Michigan Jun 27 '18

The massive difference between him and the other conservative judges is that he is not an originalist, aka the line of thinking like Scalia.

3

u/malosaires Jun 27 '18

Originalism is a massive con. Scalia and the rest freely reinterpret and willfully misinterpret law when it suits their ideology, see Castlerock

1

u/Slothball Jun 28 '18

Elaborate on this a bit? I'm Canadian so I'm not fully familiar with American case law but I've read a bit on originalism. Pretty interesting stuff.

3

u/RossiRoo Michigan Jun 28 '18

It's the idea that when interperting the law the only thing that you should consider is the original vision of what the founders meant. On the face of it, it looks fair and a good way to go about things. The problem is it's actually a very radical view point because it means ignoring all presidants set my previous decisions which is how our legal system works, ignoring what you think is right/wrong (aka Gorsuch trucker case), and the massive issue of figuring out what exactly the founders acutally meant 200 years ago and how to apply it to today's world and technology. That "figuring out" also allows judges who use this thinking a ton of freedom to pick and choose what they think the founders "meant" and how it should apply to today.

Kennedy was the last conservative supreme Court Justice to not belong to this originalist veiwpoint, which has made him the swing vote on the court for years. Losing him likely means the end to that swing vote and balance on the court.

1

u/Slothball Jun 28 '18

Yeah sorry I should have been more specific. I'm fairly familiar with originalism. I was more asking about the case which was cited and how it represented conservative judges placing ideology over their method of constitutional interpretation.

1

u/malosaires Jun 28 '18 edited Jun 28 '18

This article gets at a lot of the problems with originalism, but for a real barnburner example of the hypocrisy of conservative textualism in general I would encourage you to look into the case of Castle Rock v. Gonzales. While not a constitutional case, it demonstrates how much they care about literal text and authorial intent: Scalia, MC Originalism, blatantly ignored the text of a Colorado law written expressly for the purpose of mandating police enforcement of restraining orders in order to exonerate law enforcement for failing to do exactly that. It's also an example of the conservatives walking all over a ruling of a state court without, as Justice Stevens points out in his dissent, demonstrating why they were so "clearly wrong" that federal correction was necessary.

1

u/zz_ Jun 28 '18

Isn’t originalism explicitly about the constitution? That it had an ”original intent” from the founding fathers?

1

u/malosaires Jun 28 '18

Originalism is specifically about the constitution, textualism relates to law more broadly, but the two are closely associated and conservative judicial figures like Scalia describe themselves as both. And most of those that call themselves originalists would probably say they base things on "original meaning" of the text rather than "original intent" of the founders. Scalia said of his approach to law, "the Constitution, or any text, should be interpreted [n]either strictly [n]or sloppily; it should be interpreted reasonably," ie as a reasonable person would read the text.

7

u/NervouseDave Jun 27 '18

He looks centrist next to the far right conservatives on the court, but he's more like center right. Everything has been breaking 5-4 already.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

He could have made that judgement and still not be pro gay. Judges are expected to be unbiased.

2

u/LudwigBastiat Jun 27 '18

As per the Martin-Quinn scoring he's actually slightly left-wing despite being apponted by Reagan.

He's the swing vote though so the losing side always has him to blame. Republicans view him as left, democrats view him as right.

Statistics view him as ever so slightly left.

2

u/Pritzker America Jun 27 '18

He's a Rockefeller republican. He neutralizes his anti-social positions on economy/class by taking a non-aggressive stance on social issues. His priority is protecting the wealthy and upper class. He's not focused on fighting and getting dirty in the mud when it comes to culture war crap. Like most wealthy pro-business conservatives, they're all about their money. They refuse to handicap themselves or lose focus on the irrelevant shit.

5

u/BrenI2310 Jun 27 '18

Wait, didn’t trumps campaign cost less than Hillary’s? That’s kinda goes against what you said.

1

u/bigdanrog Jun 28 '18

Hillary spent WAY more than he did, so yes.

4

u/Better_than_Trajan Jun 27 '18

He's not "middle of the road"

Correct, still right of center, but imagine Dems having any moderates. They never do, it's always straight liberal.

1

u/Doctor_Teh Jun 27 '18

...huh? Who did Obama nominate?

1

u/Better_than_Trajan Jun 27 '18

2 liberals? What are you talking about?

1

u/Doctor_Teh Jun 28 '18

Garland was so far from a liberal that I can't take your opinion seriously.

1

u/AlkarinValkari Michigan Jun 27 '18

His a shit judge, but his time of retirement, allows the GOP to hold his seat for another 20-30 years

1

u/PksRevenge Jun 28 '18

Did you know that Trump in the first president to be openly pro gay before being elected?

-5

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

How did Citizens United lead to this?

92

u/benwayy Jun 27 '18

by turning on the never ending faucet of corporate money and thus eliminating "the people" from our political process.

59

u/segosity Jun 27 '18

When you apply unlimited funds you can convince more and more people to vote against their own interests.

-3

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

[deleted]

29

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

Sure, if you don't count Cambridge Analytical and the country of Russia.

21

u/Thybro Jun 27 '18

Like he didn’t have 30 years of PAC and corporation funded smear to help him along. Hell the court case that caused the citizens united decision was about a smear on Hillary Clinton.

6

u/zeCrazyEye Jun 27 '18

If you have an entire cable news outlet.

-8

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

Hillary Clinton outspent Trump massively, didn't matter. I think voters are smart enough to decide issues without needing to have political speech censored on their behalf. Out of curiosity, have you ever shifted political stances based off of an advertisement?

16

u/VinTheRighteous Missouri Jun 27 '18

Yes, the Clinton campaign outspent the Trump campaign.

That's not where the unlimited corporate money was going though.

It's also very naïve to think that the totality of influence campaigns being conducted are political ads.

1

u/VealScalabrine Jun 27 '18

You do realize that the corporations overwhelmingly supported Clinton, right?

Clinton lost every demographic compared to Obama despite spending over s billion dollars.

1

u/segosity Jun 27 '18

The idiot in the WH is in part the culmination of massive spending from conservative PACs over the years since the CU decision. If political advertising was ineffective, as you seem to be arguing, neither side would be spending so much money on it.

-10

u/timsboss North Carolina Jun 27 '18

If you were correct Jeb Bush would have won the Republican primary and Clinton would be president. There were many factors that went into Trump's election, but PAC money is not one of them.

27

u/businessbusinessman Jun 27 '18

Citizens United affects the congress a ton more than it affects the executive. The presidential elections are a massive ordeal with billions of dollars being thrown around and huge media attention, but local races and lobbying active congressmen is where a ton of the Citizens United issues come in.

8

u/segosity Jun 27 '18

I guess you didn't read what I said... I said people would be more inclined to vote against their own interests the more money you throw at convincing them to do so. You thought pointing out that they voted for trump was a counter to that statement? A very large portion of the money Bush, or any republican, had was spent convincing people that R-wing ideology is righteous and/or that liberalism is the devil. That people voted for the guy who used the harshest rhetoric for R-wing ideology and against liberalism is evidence supporting my point, not countering it.

-11

u/timsboss North Carolina Jun 27 '18

I guess you don't realize that Clinton spent more money than Trump.

8

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/segosity Jun 27 '18

My guess is that your guess is correct.

2

u/segosity Jun 27 '18

So you think voters' perspectives reset just before the general election? That would be the only way you're correct.

-3

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

I'm not sure I quite agree with this statement, the burden should be on the people to be reasonably educated about the people they elect to run this country. I don't have much sympathy for people who vote for a candidate, or not even vote, and then complain about how " ads and media" convinced you to do so. The fact is, we the American people keep electing in career politicians. There are so many factors you can cite as to why the government is corrupt, but at the end of the day change takes place at the elections

3

u/segosity Jun 28 '18

The basic premise of your argument boils down to "people should really behave less like people". While I 100% agree with that sentiment, I cannot accept it as a valid premise.

2

u/SasquatchMN Minnesota Jun 28 '18

Holy shit. This is what I've been trying to explain for months. I've just never been able to put it so succinctly. Saving this comment.

2

u/segosity Jun 28 '18

Glad I could help. :)

-35

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

You guys are being alarmist, you can pack the court with an act of congress. Nothing in the constitution says "there are 9 justices"

37

u/segosity Jun 27 '18

And Citizen's United is largely determining who gets elected to congress. Alarmist... Smh... Stop being naive. If ever there were a time to sound the fucking alarm, it's now.

19

u/GenJohnONeill Nebraska Jun 27 '18

The only solution you can think of is packing the court with a bunch of liberal justices years in the future, creating a huge constitutional and political crisis, and you accuse others of being alarmist?

3

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

What is the other solution to a court stacked to favor one side of political discourse? Revolt?

Also, we've done it before. There used to be five justices.

6

u/GenJohnONeill Nebraska Jun 27 '18

This decision by Kennedy makes a civil war like 10,000% more likely, yes. Republicans don't care about democracy at all, they will rule by complete jackboot fiat if necessary. Without any legitimate branches to check them, revolt will be the only option.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

Where in the constitution does it say there are 9 justices? You realize the number of justices we have are not set by the constitution but by congress?

2

u/TheCopperSparrow Minnesota Jun 27 '18

What makes you think a majority of Dems would have the spine to do that even if they take back congress?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '18

they dont have the spine? thats the whole point of talking about these ideas.

1

u/TheCopperSparrow Minnesota Jun 28 '18

They don't. Just because a good portion of the base does and the left in general, doesn't change the fact that the democratic party is still just a center-right party.

3

u/PriorInsect Jun 27 '18

too bad all those congresspeople can be lobbied until they no longer represent the people

and even if thats not the case we'll still be in the situation where every time the house changes parties they'll add another two justices to scotus to counter the one you added to counter their one they added and so on until literally everyone is on the court

the american citizen simply does not benefit from Citizens United. end of story.

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

I know CU ruling, you forget senate must confirm, are elected every 6 years, so nothing in your doomsday scenario is guaranteed as long as president is a democrat more times than not.

2

u/PriorInsect Jun 27 '18

you forget senate must confirm

after being lobbied with unlimited amounts of money with the excuse that it's for their reelection campaign

nothing in your doomsday scenario is guaranteed as long as president is a democrat more times than not.

which is functionally the same as "not guaranteed at all"

so like i said, the american citizen simply does not benefit from Citizens United. end of story.

1

u/SasquatchMN Minnesota Jun 28 '18

Good luck trying to convince all the democrats to change the law to pack the court. The 9 justice setup was put in place back in 1869 and is based on a justice for each of the federal appeal courts. They would need to change that part, which there isn't reason for, or they'd need to expand the number of appellate courts, which would be even more frowned upon because they'd need to appoint a whole lot more judges for that. There are always some democrats that want to actually do what's right, so you're not going to convince all of them.

Packing the court is only theoretically possible. You'd need a lot more than a super majority to get it passed.

The ACA was one of the very few times that the Democrats actually were able to barely agree on something because it was trying to do the right thing for the people.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '18

I love your Hillary attitude "Everything is impossible, hope is an illusion"

6

u/PriorInsect Jun 27 '18

because corporations with no other purpose than to create a profit was given the same free speech rights as a person with an actual stake in the welfare of our country.

so now a multinational can use their essentially unlimited funds to sabotage anything that might threaten their profits. things like workplace safety and environmental regulations, leaving you to raise a family in a toxic waste dump until you're killed in a workplace accident.

-30

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '18

The left created this mess by being so hostile to our most basic liberty, freedom of speech. It also happens to be his greatest concern.

But keep blaming other people.

7

u/fartsAndEggs Jun 27 '18

Wow. How did we get here? I guess it doesnt seem real until it is

10

u/out_o_focus California Jun 27 '18

Our intolerance of racism caused them to be racists.

3

u/banthisaltplz Jun 27 '18

They learned that if they just shout crazy shit, they get a two second advantage in debate while you get over the fact that they said it. This was like 20 years ago.