Kennedy makes way for conservative majority

Justice Anthony Kennedy on Wednesday announced his retirement from the Supreme Court, giving President Donald Trump the opportunity to fill a second seat on the high court during his tenure. “Please permit me by this letter to express my profound gratitude for having had the privilege to seek in each case how best to know, interpret, and defend the Constitution and the laws that must always conform to its mandates and promises,” Kennedy wrote in his resignation letter to the president. Trump responded by saying he would immediately begin searching for a new justice and called Kennedy a man of tremendous vision.

The White House published a list of possible Supreme Court nominees early last year as the president prepared to fill the seat vacated upon the death of Antonin Scalia. Appellate judges Thomas Hardiman, Raymond Kethledge, and William H. Pryor joined eventual nominee Neil Gorsuch on the president’s short list in 2017.

Kennedy was known as a swing vote on the court and recently sided with conservative justices on matters relating to religious liberty, freedom of speech for pregnancy centers, and union rules. He ruled with liberals in legalizing same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. His retirement gives conservatives a chance for a solid 5-4 majority on the nation’s highest court. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday that he and his colleagues would vote on the confirmation of Kennedy’s successor this fall.