1、CRS INSIGHT Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Legal SidebarLegal Sidebari i Justice Kennedy Retires: Initial Considerations for Congress June 28, 2018 On June 27, 2018, hours after the Supreme Court released its final opinions for the term, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, announced that, e
2、ffective July 31, 2018, he would retire from active service as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Nominated to replace Justice Lewis Powell in 1987, Justice Kennedy has served on the Court for more than three decades. Like his predecessor, Justice Kennedy has often been referred to as the Co
3、urts “swing” vote. Justice Kennedy has pushed back against such a moniker, declaring in a 2015 speech that “the cases swing, I dont.” But his central role on the Court in recent decades, and in particular in the Roberts Court era, cannot be overstated. Since the Roberts Court began in 2005, Justice
4、Kennedy has been the justice who cast his votes most often with the majority of the Court in all but three terms. (Chief Justice Roberts edged out Justice Kennedy in the most recent term and the October 2007 term, while Justice Breyer was the most frequent justice in the majority during the October
