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Supreme Court · Associate Justice

Anthony Kennedy

Republican appointee: Appointed by Ronald Reagan (R)

Served 1988–2018 · 31 terms

Confirmed 97–0

Biography

Anthony McLeod Kennedy is an American lawyer who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1988 until his retirement in 2018. He was nominated to the court in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan, and after being unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate was sworn in on February 18, 1988.

Source: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Ideology over time

Kennedy and the 17 justices who overlapped with Kennedy, 1987–2017

−4−20+2+4199019952000200520102015More conservativeMore liberalThomasAlitoScaliaRehnquistGorsuchJ. RobertsKennedyO'ConnorSouterKaganBreyerStevensGinsburgSotomayor
  • Anthony Kennedy
  • 95% credible interval
  • Peer, appointed by a Democrat
  • Peer, appointed by a Republican
  • Court median
How to read this

Martin–Quinn scores place each justice on a single liberal–conservative dimension, estimated from their votes across terms, with scores allowed to shift from one term to the next. Higher is more conservative. The shaded band is the credible interval: wider when the record is thin, especially in a justice’s first terms, and narrower as votes accumulate.

Where Kennedy sits among all justices

Career average, every justice in the data set

−4−20+2+4−0.271.50

Kennedy’s range across terms

Served alongside Kennedy

17 justices

Closest career average first. Filled dot: the peer. Ring: Kennedy.

JusticeTogetherCareer avg
John Roberts2005–2017career average 0.81 versus Kennedy at 0.68Byron White1987–1992career average 0.44 versus Kennedy at 0.68Sandra O'Connor1987–2005career average 1.02 versus Kennedy at 0.68Neil Gorsuch2016–2017career average 1.04 versus Kennedy at 0.68Harry Blackmun1987–1993career average −0.03 versus Kennedy at 0.68Samuel Alito2005–2017career average 2.00 versus Kennedy at 0.68David Souter1990–2008career average −0.77 versus Kennedy at 0.68Antonin Scalia1987–2015career average 2.50 versus Kennedy at 0.68Stephen Breyer1994–2017career average −1.32 versus Kennedy at 0.68William Rehnquist1987–2004career average 2.97 versus Kennedy at 0.68Elena Kagan2010–2017career average −1.74 versus Kennedy at 0.68Ruth Ginsburg1993–2017career average −1.76 versus Kennedy at 0.68William Brennan1987–1989career average −1.78 versus Kennedy at 0.68John Stevens1987–2009career average −1.81 versus Kennedy at 0.68Clarence Thomas1991–2017career average 3.40 versus Kennedy at 0.68Thurgood Marshall1987–1990career average −2.82 versus Kennedy at 0.68Sonia Sotomayor2009–2017career average −3.27 versus Kennedy at 0.68

How Kennedy voted

Every argued case Kennedy took part in, newest first, with how Kennedy voted in each: with the majority, in dissent, or in an equally divided Court. A Liberal or Conservative tag is the Supreme Court Database’s coding of who prevailed in the case, not a rating of the justices.

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    Data notes

    The Decisions page’s argued cases with this justice’s vote from the Supreme Court Database. “Majority” includes a concurrence; a vote that dissented in part is coded by the side the justice took overall. Cases the justice sat out and equally divided cases are left out of the percentages. “Wrote” means authored an opinion. Source: Supreme Court Database (Spaeth et al.).

    Report a correction

    Scores: Martin, Andrew D. and Kevin M. Quinn. 2002. “Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953–1999.” Political Analysis 10:134–153, from mqscores.wustl.edu. Appointment data: Federal Judicial Center biographical directory. Biographies: Wikipedia, text abridged, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Portraits: public-domain images via Wikimedia Commons.