{"id":14,"date":"2013-06-28T21:57:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-28T21:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2013\/06\/28\/justice-kennedy-right-place-at-right-time"},"modified":"2013-06-28T21:57:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-28T21:57:00","slug":"justice-kennedy-right-place-at-right-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14","title":{"rendered":"Justice Kennedy: right place at right time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It occurred to me the other day as I was pondering a key ruling from the Supreme Court that changed so many Americans\u2019 lives that the critical vote came from someone who wasn\u2019t supposed to there in the first place.<\/p>\n

Justice Anthony Kennedy fulfilled his role as the \u201cswing vote\u201d on the court, tilting it 5 to 4 in overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that declared that marriage must be between a man and a woman. The court ruled that the law violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution\u2019s 14th Amendment by denying same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples. The ruling produced dancing in the streets, literally, in cities across the nation.<\/p>\n

Kennedy\u2019s role was critical. But think of this: Were it not for the U.S. Senate\u2019s rejection of one high court nominee and another\u2019s withdrawal from being considered for the court, Kennedy wouldn\u2019t have been there to change history.<\/p>\n

Justice Lewis Powell retired from the court in 1987. President Reagan nominated former U.S. Solicitor General Robert Bork to replace him. Bork, brilliant constitutional scholar that he was, harbored some views about race relations, affirmative action and women\u2019s reproductive rights that troubled many members of the Senate, which had the power to confirm or reject his appointment. Senators chose the latter and knocked Bork out of the race in a decisive 58-42 vote to reject his nomination.<\/p>\n

Then the president turned to Douglas Ginsburg, who looked like a shoo-in \u2013 until it was disclosed that he smoked pot while in college. Oops, Mr. Justice-designate. Can\u2019t have that spot on the record of a Supreme Court justice. A firestorm erupted over that chapter in Ginsburg\u2019s life. He backed out of consideration.<\/p>\n

Only then<\/em> did the president turn to Kennedy, a fellow Californian, to take his seat on the high court bench. Kennedy sailed through Senate confirmation and joined the court in 1988.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that Kennedy is an accidental Supreme Court justice. He happened to be in the right place at the right time. Furthermore, he\u2019s proving to be far from the ideologue that some thought he\u2019d become after being nominated by the godfather of modern political conservatism. <\/p>\n

Vive la independent<\/em> judiciary!<\/em><\/p>\n\n

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It occurred to me the other day as I was pondering a key ruling from the Supreme Court that changed so many Americans\u2019 lives that the critical vote came from someone who wasn\u2019t supposed to there in the first place. Justice Anthony Kennedy fulfilled his role as the \u201cswing vote\u201d on the court, tilting it … Continue reading Justice Kennedy: right place at right time<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}