“I believe we’re going to have another Supreme Court justice this year. I think Kennedy is going to retire around sometime early summer.”

– Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev.

Rumors of Justice Kennedy’s impending retirement have persisted for the last three years.  With six weeks left in the 2017 term – Kennedy’s 30th year as a member of the Supreme Court – whispers about his future grow to audible pronouncements.

Kennedy has cast decisive votes in many of the Court’s most controversial cases, from LGBT rights and abortion access to Second Amendment and immigration cases.  If Justice Kennedy steps down and President Trump appoints a successor, the confirmation fight will be titanic. It should be noted that President Trump tapped Neil Gorsuch, one of Kennedy’s former clerks, to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia in 2017.

In all likelihood … Mr. Trump would appoint a committed conservative like his first nominee, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. In the few divided cases in which Justices Kennedy and Gorsuch participated in the court’s last term, they agreed just 38 percent of the time. By contrast, Justice Gorsuch agreed with Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s most conservative member, 100 percent of the time. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/us/politics/anthony-kennedy-retirement.html

Kennedy, who was appointed to the Court by President Reagan in 1988, is often known for casting the tie-breaking vote in contentious decisions – including the Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges which legalized same-sex marriage.  He was in the majority for 97% of all cases during the 2016-17 term, according to statistics compiled by SCOTUSblog. In cases where justices were divided, Kennedy was in the majority 93% of the time, by far the highest percentage of the nine justices.

Senator Heller, quoted above, expressed hope that Justice Kennedy’s retirement would “get our base a little motivated because right now they’re not very motivated,” according to an audio recording of the event reported by Politico.

A separate GOP senator told The Hill that confirming another conservative justice to the court would give Senate Republican candidates another solid accomplishment to run on in the midterms.

“It would be helpful if he made this the cap of his career,” the lawmaker said of Kennedy. “It would be very helpful to appoint another Neil Gorsuch on the court for the next decade.” http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/380023-gop-senators-fuel-justice-kennedy-retirement-talk

Stay tuned to the CockleBur for developments as the 2017 terms concludes next month.