Today in Supreme Court History: February 18, 1988

2/18/1988: Justice Anthony Kennedy takes judicial oath.

Justice Anthony Kennedy

Comments

[DaivdBehar]

Ivy indoctrinated turncoat with catastrophic, horrible judgment. A real weasel, begging for more money, hat in hand. Poster boy for the fungibility of all nominees and for the justificayion to exclude all lawyer scumbags ftom the court.

[Queen Amalthea]

Ridiculer's rambling rant!

[Dan Schiavetta]

Election year! Opposing party in control of the Senate! Still got voted on and even approved!

[Cal Cetín]

And what's surprising is that they were willing to confirm such a hard-core right-winger.

/sarc

[Queen Amalthea]

More of a hard core Republican (Janus, Citizens United, Shelby, etc.,) than right-winger.

[ReaderY]

Kennedy was a compromise candidate after the Senate declined to confirm Robert Bork. And the Democrats got something for their troubles. Picking Kennedy instead of Bork led to narrow majorities of the Court taking liberal positions on social issues, from Casey to Lawrence and Ogelforbe, that likely would not have happened if Bork had been on the court instead of Kennedy.

So Kennedy isn’t a good example of the Senate going along with the President’s pick. It’s actually something of an example of the opposite.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It sounds like bigots would have been happier with Bork and have been disappointed by Kennedy.

Great!

[F.D. Wolf]

The violent reaction to the nomination of Robert Bork was really about one thing and one thing only: abortion, the one "constitutional" right the Left holds above all others. In 1987, Roe v. Wade was only 14 years old and was still considered on shaky ground. After the Senate's rejection of Bork, President Reagan announced his intention to nominate D.C. Circuit Judgg Douglas Ginsburg, but - SCANDAL! - it was revealed that Ginsburg had used marijuana as a college professor, so Reagan never formally submitted his nomination.

The Democrats viewed the nomination of Kennedy as a surrender by Reagan on abortion, which it was. Kennedy was confirmed 97-3 (51-3 among Democrats). Kennedy, of course, justified the Democrats' view by consistently voting to uphold the right to abortion throughout his tenure on the Court.

[Bob from Ohio]

Yes, a disaster.

Not Souter or Brennen or Warren level bad because he sometimes went conservative [other than gays and killing babies] but a gigantic missed opportunity.

[Queen Amalthea]

Come on. There was also a great deal of concern about Bork's civil rights views, to name one other example.

There was also his rather shameless conduct in Watergate.

Bork had a very principled theory of jurisprudence, but like many such things it would have challenged quite a bit of extant law.

[F.D. Wolf]

Obviously, the Democrats could hardly announce their opposition was mostly about abortion and suggested others.

As for Bork's "shameless conduct in Watergate," it hadn't seemed to bother anyone five years earlier in 1982 when a Democratic-majority Senate unanimously confirmed him to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

This is a novel theory to me, that the opposition to Bork was driven mostly by the desire to protect abortion rights. I wonder if you can cite any historical evidence, or perhaps a paper making this argument. It's an interesting theory, but I am skeptical.

[F.D. Wolf]

CORRECTION: In 1982, the Republicans held a majority in the Senate. My apologies.