Thread: (Justice) Kennedy:I think I'll stick around until 2013

You have to love this! And that he's letting it known why he's sticking around. As the article states, Obama was so foolish to slap their hands publicly. Payback....



Kennedy: I think I’ll stick around until 2013
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posted at 10:55 am on July 6, 2010 by Ed Morrissey


Increasingly, Justice Anthony Kennedy has become the most important member of the Supreme Court. After the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor, Kennedy serves as the swing vote between the conservative and liberal blocs on the Court, siding more often with conservatives (but not often enough for their taste). At 74, though, Kennedy is at an age when most men think of retirement — and his departure would set off a political firestorm on Capitol Hill the likes of which haven’t been seen since Clarence Thomas endured his trial by fire in the Senate.

And maybe that’s why Kennedy tells close friends and relatives that he wants to wait a while before retiring … or perhaps it’s because of the man who would pick his successor:

Justice Kennedy, who turns 74 this month, has told relatives and friends he plans to stay on the high court for at least three more years – through the end of Obama’s first term, sources said.

That means Kennedy will be around to provide a fifth vote for the court’s conservative bloc through the 2012 presidential election. If Obama loses, Kennedy could retire and expect a Republican President to choose a conservative justice.

Kennedy, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, has been on the court 22 years. He has become a bit of a political nemesis at the White House for his increasing tendency to side with the court’s four rock-ribbed conservative justices.

In fact, as the New York Daily News implies, Kennedy may have made that decision after this year’s State of the Union address:

Without naming Kennedy, Obama was unusually critical of his majority opinion in the Citizens United case, handed down last January. That 5-4 decision struck down limits on contributions to political campaigns as an abridgement of free speech.

Obama called the ruling “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power … in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.â€

Good. At least one road block against more Obama radical appointments.


Kennedy's Conscience

Posted 07/07/2010 06:48 PM ET
No retirement in sight for a justice who knows high-court tectonics as well as anyone.

No retirement in sight for a justice who knows high-court tectonics as well as anyone. View Enlarged Image

Supreme Court: Justice Anthony Kennedy has reportedly vowed to keep his job until President Obama's first term ends. Sounds like he's not impressed with the president's politicized high court picks.

Serving on the highest court in the land for more than two decades now, Kennedy is the unrivaled King of Swing. Considered by some the most powerful man in America, he has in the past voted with both the conservative and liberal blocs of the Supreme Court, each of which has been four justices strong.

He was nominated in the aftermath of the Robert Bork debacle in 1987. After Washington DC Circuit Judge Douglas Ginsburg's Supreme Court nomination went up in smoke over his marijuana use while on the Harvard faculty, the Reagan administration was in near desperation to avoid a third straight defeat.

While sold as a bread-and-butter California conservative, as opposed to the ultra-intellectual Bork version, Kennedy sat on the Ninth Circuit Court based in San Francisco — a federal appeals court known for its often-quirky opinions, and for the frequency with which its opinions are overturned in the Supreme Court.

As a famous Evans and Novak column reported several years after he was approved, Kennedy became a habitue of the Georgetown cocktail party circuit who, at times, seemed more in tune with liberal jurisprudence than its conservative opposite.

Still, in recent years, however, Kennedy has sided with the conservatives on the court a lot more often. Because of his pivotal role as a high court swing vote, he frequently gets to write the 5-to-4 opinion himself for big cases.

Who would have thought that the "borking" of Judge Bork would lead to one man wielding so much power for so long?

The New York Daily News reported this week that Justice Kennedy has told friends and relatives that he'll stay on the court until after the next presidential inauguration in 2013. No shock there; it's good to be king.

But it also seems clear that the man who knows the ideological plate tectonics of the court better than anyone can see what the president is doing with his own nominations, first of Justice Sonia Sotomayor and now with the near-certain confirmation of Elena Kagan to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

Kennedy knows any departing justice will be replaced with someone who's fairly radical, and he's apparently determined to wait until that situation changes.

It may well be a principled defense of the court's prerogatives, but it's also no doubt self-defense: One more Obama appointment and the reign of King Anthony could be over. Either way, we're glad to hear Kennedy will stay on.

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