http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-dru...-are-long-goneAs you can see, several of the justices have moved rightward over the past few years, but Kennedy is the only one who's moved from the center to a firmly conservative position, and he shows no signs of stopping. Whatever the reason for this, it's really not correct to think of Kennedy as a centrist anymore. He's now a pretty firm conservative vote, and Citizens United and the Obamacare decision have been his coming out party. The days of Lawrence and Kelo are long
Alito, Thomas and Scalia are firmly in the pockets of the wing-nuts and the corporations which fund their elections...never has a Supreme court been so consistently ruled just on the bases of political ideology..
Kill yourself
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-dru...-are-long-gone
Alito, Thomas and Scalia are firmly in the pockets of the wing-nuts and the corporations which fund their elections...never has a Supreme court been so consistently ruled just on the bases of political ideology..
j i n o s
aka, political hacks and VRWC shills
and their anti-99% will continue for decades
I'm starting to think they take turns being the swing vote.
The premise of this thread is true . . . except for its utter falsity.
Kennedy may be tending towards more doctrinal conservatism, but he remains the most moderate member of the Court among the conservative justices and, for that reason, remains firmly entrenched as the Court's swing vote in almost every 5-4 case.
This past term bears out the continuing truth of Kennedy's status as the swing vote. There were 15 cases in which the prevailing opinion got only 5 votes. Ten of those 15 cases were truly split along predictable partisan lines. 5 times of those 10, the conservative majority won out; the remaining 5 times, the liberal justices won out. The justice on the winning side of all 10 of those cases? Anthony Kennedy.
http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-con...OT11_final.pdf
Nobody else on that Court even comes close to that sort of voting power -- Justice Breyer sided with the most conservative members of the Court one time; Justice Sotomayor did the same once; Chief Justice Roberts sided with the liberal members of the Court one time (ACA), and there were two cases that were clearly ideologically-divided (one being decided by Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Breyer, and Alito; the other was decided by Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Sotomayor, and Kagan). Ultimately, Justice Kennedy was in the Court's majority in 93% of all decided cases.
This is not some historical anomaly.
In October Term 2010 (the term running from October 2010 through summer 2011), there were 16 cases decided on a 5-4 basis. Justice Kennedy was clearly the deciding vote in 14 of the 16 cases, siding 10 times with the conservatives and 4 times with the liberals. In that term, Justice Kennedy was in the majority 94% of the time.
In October Term 2009, there were 16 cases decided on a 5-4 vote. The conservatives with Justice Kennedy prevailed in 8 of those cases; the liberals with Justice Kennedy prevailed in 3 of the cases. In that term, Justice Kennedy was in the majority 91% of the time.
2009: Kennedy swung it conservative 8 to 3
2010: Kennedy swung it conservative 10 to 4
"he remains the most moderate member of the Court among the conservative justices"
... being less extremist than the 4-JINO block isn't saying much.
He's undoubtedly more conservative than anything else, but he has been crucial to the liberal justices winning out more often than they otherwise would.
It certainly could be much worse if you cheer for the Blue team.
I cheer for "progress" for all Human-Americans, which is exactly what conservatives DON'T WANT
Facts.
Yawn.
nbadan
z chime in with eloquence unbridled!
hey, that actually caused a smile. I'm impressed.
Kennedy has never served as a "center" vote in the way that Justice O'Connor once did. He doesn't force one side of the court into a compromise position in order to gain his decisive fifth vote. Rather, Kennedy swings from one extreme to the other, but not necessarily in a consistent way associated with the typical blue-red split. Lately, he's clearly been swinging wider right...his decision striking not only the mandate, but the entire act was quaint. Kennedy and the other three don't even bother to make a pretense any more of judicial restraint.....
I heard some on tv saying that his record, lately, has been that of a libertarian.
Isn't that what our cons ution is about?
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