Trump on Supreme Court nominee: 'We have a list of 25'

US president Donald Trump has paid tribute to retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and spoken about who might replace him.</s>Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced his retirement, giving President Donald Trump a chance to cement conservative control of the nation’s highest court.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced his retirement, giving President Donald Trump a chance to cement conservative control of the nation’s highest court.

The 81-year-old said in a statement he was stepping down after more than 30 years.

A Republican appointee, he has held the key vote on such high-profile issues as abortion, affirmative action, gay rights, guns, campaign finance and voting rights.

Justice Kennedy informed his colleagues of his plans, then went to the White House to meet Mr Trump, where the president said they talked for half an hour about a potential successor and other topics. The retirement will take effect at the end of July.

Mr Trump praised Justice Kennedy as a man of “tremendous vision” and said his search for a new justice would begin immediately.

Without Justice Kennedy, the court will be split between four liberal justices who were appointed by Democratic presidents and four conservatives who were named by Republicans.

Mr Trump’s nominee, likely to give the conservatives a solid majority, will face a Senate confirmation process in which Republicans hold the slimmest majority but Democrats cannot prevent a vote.

The other two older justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 85, and Stephen Breyer, 79, are Democratic appointees who would not appear to be going anywhere during a Trump administration if they can help it.

Mr Trump’s first high court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, was confirmed in April 2017. If past practice is any indication, the president will name a nominee within weeks, setting in motion a process that could allow confirmation by the time the court reconvenes in early October.

Mr Trump already has a list of 25 candidates — 24 judges and Utah senator Mike Lee — and has said he would choose a nominee from that list.

Abortion is likely to be one of the flashpoints in the nomination fight.

Justice Kennedy has mainly supported abortion rights in his time on the court, and Mr Trump has made clear he would try to choose justices who want to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade decision.

Such a dramatic ruling may not be immediately likely, but a more conservative court might be more willing to sustain abortion restrictions.

“If Donald Trump, who has promised to overturn Roe v. Wade, picks someone who is anti-choice, the future of Roe v. Wade is very much in question,” said David Cole, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Republicans currently hold a bare 51-49 majority in the Senate, although that includes the ailing Senator John McCain of Arizona.

If Democrats stand united in opposition to Mr Trump’s choice, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky can lose no more than one vote. If the Senate divides 50-50, Vice President Mike Pence could break a tie to confirm the nominee.

Prominent on the list of possible successors are Judges Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania and William Pryor of Alabama, who was seriously considered for the seat eventually filled by Justice Gorsuch, and Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who serves on the federal appeals court in Washington.</s>Image copyright EPA Image caption Justice Kennedy's retirement hands Mr Trump a second pick on the US Supreme Court

US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is to retire, giving President Donald Trump the chance to cement a conservative majority on the top court.

The conservative has sided with liberals on many decisions, including the 5-4 rulings that decided same-sex marriage and upheld abortion rights.

In his letter to Mr Trump, Justice Kennedy expressed "profound gratitude" for having served in the highest court.

The 81-year-old judge will retire on 31 July, he said in his letter.

He is the second-oldest justice on the nine-member US Supreme Court.

The court plays a key role in American life and is often the final word on highly contentious laws, disputes between states and the federal government, and final appeals to stay executions.

In recent years, it has expanded gay marriage to all 50 states, halted President Barack Obama's immigration orders and delayed a US plan to cut carbon emissions while appeals went forward.

Earlier this week it upheld Mr Trump's travel ban which covers people from several Muslim-majority countries, in a 5-4 conservative majority ruling.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said on Wednesday that a vote on Mr Trump's nominee to replace Justice Kennedy - who earned a reputation as the court's "swing" vote - would take place by the autumn.

Justice Kennedy has frequently sided with abortion rights advocates in the court and news of his retirement has raised fears among pro-choice groups that access to legal abortions in several states could be under threat.

Justice Kennedy said he was retiring because he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Who is Anthony Kennedy?

Justice Kennedy, who was raised in California, was nominated by President Ronald Reagan and began his term in 1988.

He voted conservative on issues of campaign finance, voting rights and gun rights but was considered a swing vote on key rulings.

Justice Kennedy penned the Supreme Court's first major gay-rights decision in 1996, protecting LGBT Americans from discrimination.

In 2015, he authored the landmark opinion which gave LGBT citizens the right to marry, writing: "They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law and the Constitution grants them that right."

As a justice, he routinely favoured personal liberty and the limiting of federal power.

Mr Trump said Justice Kennedy had "displayed great vision" and "tremendous heart".

Timing is everything

Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington

Without Anthony Kennedy, the political centre on the Supreme Court will be firmly on the right. Whoever Donald Trump nominates - and he's promised to draw from the same list of candidates from which he picked Neil Gorsuch - will be a person with solid conservative bona fides.

Democrats and liberal activists will howl, rage and do all they can to slow the process, but the timing of Mr Kennedy's retirement makes what happens next all but inevitable. The president will surely offer his choice quickly, and if Republican senators stick together they have the votes to confirm before November's mid-terms congressional elections, let alone when new senators are sworn in next January.

And even if the court vacancy becomes a campaign issue, the open seat in 2016 proved that court vacancies are a much stronger motivating consideration for Republicans - particularly evangelical voters - than they are for Democrats.

File this as yet another entry in the "elections have consequences" scrapbook.

If Hillary Clinton had prevailed in 2016, Democrats would be contemplating a 6-3 liberal Supreme Court majority and an opportunity to reshape the legal landscape for a generation. Instead, on subjects like abortion law and gay rights, the pendulum is swinging the other direction.

Image copyright AFP/Getty Images

What's the reaction?

During a meeting with Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa at the White House, President Trump said he would select a nominee to replace Justice Kennedy from a list of 25 potential court candidates that his campaign had compiled during the election.

Mr Trump said the process to replace him would begin immediately.

"Hopefully we will pick someone who is just as outstanding", he said.

Mr Trump added that he had learned of the judge's retirement about a half hour before, when Justice Kennedy came to the White House to meet him.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "We have a very excellent list... of tremendous people"

The White House also released a statement thanking Justice Kennedy for his 30 years of service as a "tireless voice for individual rights".

"His words have left an indelible mark not only on this generation, but on the fabric of American history."

Top Democrat Chuck Schumer said in a televised speech on the floor of the Senate that Justice Kennedy's replacement would be a decision affecting "generations".

"Our Republican colleagues in the senate should follow the rule they set in 2016, not to consider a Supreme Court Justice in an election year," Senator Schumer said.

"Anything but that would be the absolute height of hypocrisy."

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Judge Gorsuch spoke of his "most solemn assignment"

Fellow Democrat Tammy Duckworth cited that same rule, pushed in 2016 by Republican leader Mitch McConnell, in a tweet.

Top Republican and House Speaker Paul Ryan called Justice Kennedy "a man of integrity and decency".

"He has earned the respect of the House and the American people," he wrote, adding that he was looking forward to Mr Trump's nomination of a successor who would be "dedicated to upholding the Constitution".</s>Earlier today Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy had a meeting with President Donald Trump to notify the president of his intended retirement announcement. A few hours later Justice Kennedy made the announcement public.

In a letter to President Trump, Kennedy wrote “it is the highest of honors to serve on this Court,” and he expressed his “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.”

The decision by the 81-year-old justice is all but certain to kick off a pitched confirmation battle because of the likelihood for his successor to move the court’s future decisions on a number of significant issues.

It was rumored last year that Justice Anthony Kennedy wanted to retire; however, Kennedy holds institutional and traditional reverence for the court far beyond politics. It was likely he deferred the decision until after Justice Gorsuch, a former protege’, gained a year of comfort on the court. Justice Kennedy has long showcased his disdain for politics and how it corrupts the court; and his outlook is so steeped in judicial tradition it was anticipated would defer/delay his own personal interests if he sensed a need to guard or protect the integrity of traditions within the court from the toxic infiltration of politics.

When he nominated Kennedy, Reagan billed Kennedy as a “true conservative,” but he was generally regarded as a consensus pick after the failed Bork and Ginsburg nominations; Reagan himself noted that Kennedy “seems to be popular with many senators of varying political persuasions.” The Kennedy nomination drew disapproval from some conservatives, however. Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, characterized Reagan’s choice as a “basic compromise of principle,” while political activist Richard Viguerie described the nomination as a “total surrender to the left.” Over the next three decades, conservatives were indeed often disappointed with Kennedy and his votes on a variety of issues, particularly social ones. One such topic was abortion. Anti-abortion voters had played a key role in Reagan’s election, and Kennedy initially provided both the president who appointed him and those voters with reason to be optimistic. Just a little over a year after his confirmation, Kennedy joined the majority in upholding a Missouri law that (among other things) defined life as beginning at conception and required doctors to conduct fetal viability tests before performing abortions on women who were 20 or more weeks pregnant. Along with Justice Byron White, Kennedy also joined a separate opinion, written by then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist, that would have effectively dismantled the test outlined in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 decision establishing a woman’s basic right to an abortion. And in 2007, Kennedy wrote the majority opinion when a closely divided court upheld a federal law that criminalized a procedure known as a “partial-birth” abortion. (continue reading)</s>(CBS News) — Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced he will retire.

He notified President Trump in a letter Wednesday, telling him that effective July 31, he would “end my regular active status as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, while continuing to serve in a senior status.”

Kennedy called it the “highest of honors to serve on this Court,” and he expressed his “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.”

Here is the letter he sent to President Trump

CBS News’ Jan Crawford noted that Kennedy had been saying privately he would retire, so this was not a big surprise. Kennedy’s retirement gives Mr. Trump his second nomination, following Justice Neil Gorsuch. With this next nomination, he could turn the Supreme Court to the right for a generation, she said on CBSN.

Kennedy was nominated in 1987 by President Reagan to the court, after Robert Bork’s nomination failed and Douglas Ginsburg was pressured to withdraw after questions were raised about his admission he had smoked marijuana several times.

Though he was nominated by a Republican president, Kennedy, a California native, also has a strong libertarian streak, and he was the swing vote on the court, casting the deciding vote on the same-sex marriage decision, affirmative action, and Citizens United, among others. Crawford points out that he refused to overturn Roe v. Wade, and he also constrained the bolder conservatives on the court, pulling them back a little bit. “He would just never say ‘never’ on those social issues,” Crawford said.

His retirement is a tremendous blow to the Left, especially after Senate Democrats’ failure to filibuster the president’s first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked the nuclear option, lowering the threshold from the super majority of 60 votes that is normally required for confirmation to a simple majority. That simple-majority rule remains in place for subsequent nominees.</s>Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced he will retire.

He notified President Trump in a letter Wednesday, telling him that effective July 31, he would "end my regular active status as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, while continuing to serve in a senior status."

Kennedy called it the "highest of honors to serve on this Court," and he expressed his "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."

President Trump said that he found out about Kennedy's retirement a half-hour before it was announced -- he had in fact gone to the White House to talk to the president for about 30 minutes, and Kennedy offered recommendations about who might replace him, the president told reporters during a meeting with the president of Portugal. Mr. Trump did not answer questions about who Kennedy recommended.

He called Kennedy a "spectacular man" with "tremendous heart" and said he hoped to pick somebody who will be as "outstanding" as Kennedy has been. The search, the president said, will begin immediately, and Kennedy's replacement will be chosen from the list of 25 candidates he considered last year, when he ultimately chose Gorsuch.

Here is the letter he sent to President Trump:

CBS News' Jan Crawford noted that Kennedy had been saying privately he would retire, so this was not a big surprise. Kennedy's retirement gives Mr. Trump his second nomination, following Justice Neil Gorsuch. With this next nomination, he could turn the Supreme Court to the right for a generation, she said on CBSN.

Kennedy was nominated in 1987 by President Reagan to the court, after Robert Bork's nomination failed and Douglas Ginsburg was pressured to withdraw after questions were raised about his admission he had smoked marijuana several times.

Though he was nominated by a Republican president, Kennedy, a California native, also has a strong libertarian streak, and he was the swing vote on the court, casting the deciding vote on the same-sex marriage decision, affirmative action, and Citizens United, among others. Crawford points out that he refused to overturn Roe v. Wade, and he also constrained the bolder conservatives on the court, pulling them back a little bit. "He would just never say 'never' on those social issues," Crawford said.

Crawford expects the president to name a new justice soon, to be confirmed during the summer and in place when the high court returns in October to hear arguments.

His retirement is a tremendous blow to the Left, especially after Senate Democrats' failure to filibuster the president's first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked the nuclear option, lowering the threshold from the super majority of 60 votes that is normally required for confirmation to a simple majority. That simple-majority rule remains in place for subsequent nominees.

CBS News' Chief White House correspondent Major Garrett points out that Kennedy's retirement is a campaign gift to Republicans and the president. The second Trump Supreme Court nominee will be galvanizing call to Republicans to support Republicans on the ballot in Senate and House races in the midterms.</s>Californian lawyer Anthony Kennedy was appointed to the US Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan and took his seat on the bench in February 18, 1988. Today, just over 30 years later, Justice Kennedy announced his retirement in a letter to US President Donald Trump.

There has been much speculation about Kennedy’s departure all year. Perhaps the Trump travel ban case is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Kennedy concurred with the majority, allowing the ban to stand and finding no evidence of anti-Muslim animus in the official presidential Proclamation that bars entry to residents of six predominantly-Muslim nations and some Venezuelans. But he also warned Trump, albeit in his mild way, against violating the First Amendment:

Although appointed by a Republican president, Kennedy is considered a “swing voter,” who often bridges the ideological divide between right and left. With his departure, a divided court that often decides cases with a 5-4 split, is likely to be at an impasse until he is replaced, and will likely lean to the right if a Trump appointee takes the bench in his stead.

This is the letter he sent to the president:

Republicans are no doubt pleased with the development. Senator Mitch McConnell has reportedly already stated that the party will move to replace Kennedy by next fall.

The White House today issued a statement on Kennedy’s retirement, calling him “a true man of letters” and “a tireless voice for individual rights and the Founders’ vision of limited government.” His writing, according to the statement, “left an indelible mark not only on this generation but the fabric of American history.”

Kennedy was born on July 23, 1936, which will make him 82 years old when he retires on July 31. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, three years Kennedy’s senior, is the oldest justice on the bench now and has vowed to hang on through the Trump administration when people speculate about her retirement. Now she has added motivation.

In the latest financial disclosures by the justices, Kennedy demonstrated his unique style. His is not an overly complicated life. Of all the justices, he has the simplest financial portfolio—no securities or trusts, just cash in a bank account and three life insurance policies. His wife is a retired teacher.</s>How can you make light of a situation that’s being referred to as “a seismic political event”? Stephen Colbert did his best addressing the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on Wednesday night, but it was full of those all-is-lost moments.

“We are supremely screwed,” he said. “I look forward to [CNN’s] Wolf Blitzer in 2021: ‘In the end, this Supreme Court case will be decided by the swing vote, Justice Meat Loaf.'”

Colbert also warned of potential “huge repercussions.” Kennedy had been a swing vote in multiple Supreme Court cases, including the 2015 case that legalized same-sex marriage and 1992’s that upheld . Now, with Kennedy’s retirement coming after July 31, President Trump will have the ability to nominate someone for that vacant seat and potentially implement a conservative majority in the Supreme Court.

“Enjoy your gay marriages now ’cause as of Aug. 1 you’re back to being roommates,” quipped Colbert.

The host also slammed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, reminding his audience that, during Barack Obama’s term, McConnell infamously refused to let the Senate vote on the president’s Supreme Court nomination to succeed Justice Scalia. Now, he says, “It’s imperative the president’s nominee be considered fairly.”

“Oh really?!” Colbert responded. “That’s like Typhoid Mary saying, ‘Read the sign, guys. All employees must wash hands.'”

Over on , host Trevor Noah had some words of his own. “That sound you’re hearing right now? That’s [Vice President] Mike Pence having his first orgasm,” Noah joked. “He’s like, ‘I cast you out, semen!'”

He, too, pointed out how “in 2016 Mitch McConnell stole Obama’s Supreme Court pick,” style. If Trump is Pinky from , Noah called McConnell the Brain.</s>Washington (CNN) Justice Anthony Kennedy , a conservative who provided key votes for same sex-marriage, abortion access and affirmative action, will retire from the Supreme Court.

The retirement is effective July 31, Kennedy said in a letter to President Donald Trump on Wednesday.

Kennedy's decision to step down could transform the Supreme Court for generations. Trump will have his second opportunity to nominate a justice and will likely replace Kennedy with a young, conservative jurist. That would create a bloc of five staunch conservative justices who could move the court further to the right and cement a conservative majority for the foreseeable future.

The nomination battle will likely ignite a firestorm on Capitol Hill as it comes just a year after Republicans changed the rules of the Senate in order to push through the nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump's first nominee.

Trump said he has held Kennedy in high esteem, and that a search for a replacement will begin immediately.

"He's been a great justice of the Supreme Court," Trump said, later adding, "He is a man who's displayed great vision, he's displayed tremendous vision."

Trump and Kennedy met shortly before the announcement was made.

"(We) had a very deep discussion. I got his ideas on things," Trump said in the Oval Office. "I asked him if he had certain people he had great respect for that could potentially take his seat."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will move quickly.

"We will vote to confirm Justice Kennedy's successor this fall," McConnell said Wednesday.

Kennedy, 81, controlled the outcome of cases on hot-button issues like no other justice in recent history, as he often was the "swing vote" between the four liberal justices and the four more conservative justices.

A Ronald Reagan appointee who took the bench in 1988, Kennedy's most lasting legacy will most likely be in the area of gay rights. In 2015, in it was Kennedy who penned Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark opinion that cleared the way for same-sex marriage nationwide.

"They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law and the Constitution grants them that right," Kennedy wrote.

Personal dignity and liberty are constant themes in Kennedy's jurisprudence as well as the limitation of federal power over the sovereignty of the states.

Kennedy disliked the label of "swing vote," but he did side with his conservative colleagues on issues such as campaign finance, gun control and voting rights. He also cast a vote with conservatives in Bush v. Gore, the 2000 case on disputed electoral results that cleared the way for the presidency of George W. Bush.

Kennedy authored the majority opinion in Citizens United v. FEC striking down election spending limits for corporations and unions in support of individual candidates -- an opinion that liberals and Democrats on the campaign trail vowed to overturn.

To the dismay of conservatives, however, he joined the liberals on the court in other areas.

Kennedy voted to reaffirm the core holding of Roe v. Wade in 1992, only to vote to uphold a federal ban on a particular abortion procedure in 2007.

Nine years later, he sided once again with the liberals on the court to strike down a Texas law that abortion rights supporters thought was the strictest nationwide. Without Kennedy's vote, the law would have been allowed to go into effect, inspiring other states to pass similar legislation.

In the same term, Kennedy pivoted on the issue of affirmative action when he voted for the first time in favor of a race- conscious admissions plan at a public university.

After that term, former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal said, "It is very much Justice Kennedy's court."

"You can't understand how important his affirmative action opinion is without understanding his earlier jurisprudence," Katyal said. "For decades, he has been the court's most eloquent voice on the need to be color blind -- why he changed his mind is something historians will debate for decades."

Kennedy also wrote the decision striking down the death penalty for juvenile offenders in Roper v. Simmons.

He reflected on his role in close decisions in a 2010 interview.

"If the case is close 5-4 and let's say you are on the side that prevailed with the majority, there are not a lot of high-fives and back slaps. There is a moment of quiet, a moment of respect, maybe even sometimes awe in the process. We realize that one of us is going to have to write out a decision which teaches and gives reasons for what we do."

This story is breaking and will be updated.</s>Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement on Wednesday. Kennedy’s swing votes have proved crucial in progressive issues such as abortion rights and same-sex marriage, though his latest votes had been more aligned with his conservative peers.

The announcement has already been seen as an opportunity for Republicans and president Donald Trump, who will seek to replace Kennedy with a more reliable conservative justice, while Democrats fear that a Trump appointment approved by a Republican-majority Congress will give the court a decisive conservative bent for generations.

Republicans blocked Obama’s appointee Merrick Garland and quickly approved conservative Neil Gorsuch when Trump was already in power.

Kennedy’s retirement will take effect on July 31, after which the president will be free to make his nomination. Trump announced on Wednesday that he would make his selection from a White House list of possible nominees.

“Justice Anthony – you know who I’m talking about – Justice Kennedy will be retiring. And he is a man that I’ve known for a long time and a man that I’ve respected for a long time,” said the president in remarks at the White House.

“We will begin our search for a new justice of the United States supreme court that will begin immediately, and hopefully we’re going to pick somebody that will be as outstanding.”

As British newspaper The Guardian has pointed out, Republicans would seek a vote before the midterm elections. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who blocked Obama’s nominee for eight months, said that the Senate would hold a vote on Kennedy’s successor “this fall”, meaning before the November elections that could see a changeover in Senate control.

Kennedy, who is 81 years old and was sworn in on February 18, 1988, issued a statement expressing his gratitude over having served his country.

“It has been the greatest honor and privilege to serve our nation in the federal judiciary for 43 years, 30 of those years on the Supreme Court.” Kennedy cited a “deep desire” to spend more time with his family as one of his reasons for retiring.

Liberals are aware of what’s at stake in regard of civil liberties, as they fear that key legislations could be reverted, such as Roe v Wade and the 1973 decision protection abortion rights.

Minority leader Chuck Schumer said that “the fate of our health care system, reproductive rights for women, and countless other protections” are at stake. He added that “this is the most important Supreme Court vacancy in this country in a generation.”

Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, echoed Schumer’s sentiments, criticizing the Trump administration and the GOP for their overt intention of selecting only conservative justices.

“Trump has consistently signaled his intention to select very conservative jurists, and the Senate eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees,” he said to The Guardian. “So unless the Democrats retake the Senate, which is unlikely, Trump will be able to select a justice who would vote to overturn Roe (v Wade).”

This is likely to be the most important topic in US politics for the rest of the year. Both parties are going through their own internal crisis as the GOP splits and aligns with Trump’s unpopular and inhumane policies, while establishment Democrats see their spots challenged by outlying candidates.
US Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy announces his retirement, effective July 31, 2018.