Anthony Kennedy

Sacramento in the 1940s was a capital small enough that the lawyers and the legislators all knew each other, and Anthony Kennedy's father was one of the lawyers who mattered, an attorney with a reputation for influence in the California legislature. The son served as a page in the state Senate and met Earl Warren as a boy. He took his degree at Stanford, spent his senior year at the London School of Economics, and finished at Harvard Law in 1961. Two years later his father died, and Kennedy, 26, gave up a San Francisco practice to go home and run the Sacramento office. From 1965 he also taught constitutional law at McGeorge. Governor Ronald Reagan hired him to draft a state tax-limitation ballot measure. That is how they met.

He was the third name on the list. Reagan nominated Robert Bork for Lewis Powell's seat in July 1987, and the Senate rejected him 42 to 58 in October. Douglas Ginsburg withdrew in November after admitting he had smoked marijuana. Kennedy was nominated on November 11, sat through three days of hearings, and was confirmed 97 to 0 on February 3, 1988. No justice since has been confirmed unanimously. Then came thirty years on a Court that kept splitting five to four, most of them with Kennedy in the middle of it.

Two bodies of work sit under one name. He wrote Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, which struck down the sodomy laws, United States v. Windsor in 2013, which voided the federal definition of marriage, and Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, which required every state to marry same-sex couples. The three dismantled the legal architecture of discrimination against gay Americans, and conservatives who had counted on his vote called the reasoning invented and the results a betrayal. He also wrote Citizens United v. FEC in 2010, holding that independent political spending by corporations and unions could not be capped. Critics blame it for the super PACs and the unlimited money that followed. And he wrote Boumediene v. Bush in 2008, extending habeas corpus to Guantanamo, over a dissent warning it would get Americans killed. Both sides claim him. Both resent him.

He announced his retirement on June 27, 2018, and left the Court on July 31. Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh, who had clerked for Kennedy in the 1990s, and the Senate confirmed him 50 to 48 after hearings dominated by a sexual assault allegation Kavanaugh denied. No other justice has had two former clerks join the Court, Neil Gorsuch being the first. In 2022 that Court overruled Planned Parenthood v. Casey in Dobbs, the ruling Kennedy had joined Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter to write in 1992 to keep Roe standing. The verdict on him is not settled. The Court he left looks nothing like the one he sat on.

Anthony Kennedy's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Planned Parenthood v. Casey case
  Co-authored with O'Connor and Souter, keeping Roe standing 1992
• Romer v. Evans case
  Struck down a Colorado bar on anti-discrimination protections for gay people 1996
• Lawrence v. Texas case
  Overruled Bowers v. Hardwick and the sodomy laws 2003
• Boumediene v. Bush case
  Habeas corpus reaches Guantanamo Bay, 5 to 4 2008
• Citizens United v. FEC case
  Independent political spending by corporations and unions cannot be capped 2010
• Obergefell v. Hodges case
  Same-sex marriage nationwide, and the closing paragraph read at weddings since 2015

• 1961 aged ~25 Graduates from Harvard Law and goes into practice in San Francisco He had spent his senior Stanford year at the London School of Economics.
• 1963 aged ~27 His father dies and he takes over the Sacramento practice at 26 He ran it until 1975 and taught at McGeorge from 1965.
• March 24, 1975 aged 38 Receives his commission on the Ninth Circuit Gerald Ford nominated him on Ronald Reagan's recommendation. He was 38.
• November 11, 1987 aged 51 Reagan nominates him after Bork is rejected and Ginsburg withdraws Bork lost 42 to 58 on October 23. Ginsburg pulled out on November 7.
• February 3, 1988 aged 51 Confirmed 97 to 0 The last Supreme Court justice confirmed by a unanimous Senate.
• June 29, 1992 aged 55 Joins O'Connor and Souter on the controlling opinion in Casey Three Republican appointees declined to overturn Roe, and conservatives never forgot it.
• June 12, 2008 aged 71 Writes Boumediene v. Bush Guantanamo detainees may file for habeas corpus in federal court.
• January 21, 2010 aged 73 Writes Citizens United v. FEC The most criticised opinion of his tenure, and the one he never disowned.
• June 27, 2018 aged 81 Announces his retirement, effective July 31 His former clerk Brett Kavanaugh took the seat that October.

• Ronald Reagan 1911–2004
  40th president whose conservative domestic program and assertive Cold War strategy reshaped American politics. appointed by
• Sandra Day O'Connor 1930–2023
  First woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, appointed by President Reagan. co-authored Casey with
• Brett Kavanaugh b. 1965
  Supreme Court justice confirmed in 2018 after contested hearings and often a pivotal vote. clerk who succeeded him
• Antonin Scalia 1936–2016
  Justice whose advocacy of originalism and textualism transformed American legal interpretation. opposed
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg 1933–2020
  Supreme Court Justice whose advocacy for gender equality made her a cultural icon. ally in the gay rights cases
• Samuel Alito b. 1950
  Supreme Court justice who wrote the Dobbs opinion overturning Roe v. Wade wrote the opinion undoing Casey