Anthony Kennedy

Biography

Anthony Kennedy was born in Sacramento, California, in 1936, the son of a well-connected lawyer. He studied political science at Stanford, spending his final year at the London School of Economics, and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1961.

After two years in private practice in San Francisco he took over his late father's Sacramento practice in 1963, and from 1965 he also taught constitutional law at the McGeorge School of Law of the University of the Pacific. He helped Governor Ronald Reagan draft a state tax proposal, and in 1975, on Reagan's recommendation, President Gerald Ford appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In November 1987, after the Senate rejected Robert Bork and Douglas Ginsburg withdrew, Reagan nominated Kennedy to succeed Lewis Powell. The Senate confirmed him 97–0 and he took his seat in February 1988. Usually conservative but unpredictable, he became the court's pivotal vote after Sandra Day O'Connor retired in 2006.

He co-wrote the controlling opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey and wrote the majority opinions in Citizens United v. FEC, Boumediene v. Bush and a series of gay rights cases ending with Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. He retired in July 2018 and was succeeded by his former clerk Brett Kavanaugh.