Kennedy Retirement Would Trigger Major Supreme Court Battle

Rumors swirled in the summer of 2017 that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, then 80, was considering retirement — a move that would have given President Donald Trump a second Supreme Court vacancy to fill and triggered a major political battle in Washington.

Kennedy, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988, had long served as the court’s crucial swing vote, often casting the deciding ballot in closely divided cases on issues ranging from abortion to gay rights to campaign finance. His potential departure from the bench had both parties on high alert.

For Republicans, Kennedy’s retirement represented a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shift the ideological balance of the court firmly to the right. Trump had already appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch earlier in 2017 to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. A second appointment would give conservative justices a more reliable majority on the nine-member court.

For Democrats, the prospect was alarming. Kennedy had sided with the liberal justices on several landmark decisions, including the 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Replacing him with a more reliably conservative justice could put those precedents at risk.

Senate Democrats were still frustrated over the Republican-controlled Senate’s refusal to hold hearings for Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Scalia in 2016. Many felt the seat had been effectively stolen, and the idea of Trump filling yet another vacancy deepened those grievances.

Kennedy did not retire in 2017, but the speculation proved prescient. On June 27, 2018, he officially announced his retirement from the Supreme Court. Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to replace him, setting off one of the most contentious confirmation battles in modern American history.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings were dominated by allegations of sexual assault, which Kavanaugh denied. He was ultimately confirmed by a narrow 50-48 Senate vote in October 2018.

Kennedy’s departure marked the end of an era at the Supreme Court, removing its most prominent centrist voice and reshaping the court’s direction on a range of issues for years to come.