The Supreme Court justice who believed the cases swung, not him

Cultures · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: As a law student, Anthony Kennedy once claimed constitutional law would be irrelevant to his career. Decades later, he became the most scrutinized arbiter of American liberty, crafting landmark opinions on marriage, free speech, and reproductive rights that reshaped the nation's social fabric.

For thirty years on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy occupied a position of immense judicial influence. While often labeled a 'swing vote' during the Roberts Court, Kennedy himself resisted the label, insisting that 'the cases swung, not me.' His jurisprudence was not rooted in a strict originalist or pragmatic philosophy, but rather in a search for constant principles of justice within each individual case.

Kennedy's judicial path was marked by significant shifts in alignment. Early in his tenure, he was notably conservative, voting with Justices William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia more than 90 percent of the time during his first term. However, he later moved toward a civil-libertarian perspective on specific individual rights. This independence was evident in his authorship of major decisions such as Citizens United v. FEC, where he prioritized free speech over concerns regarding corporate political spending, and Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage by applying the principles of due process and equal protection.

His decisions also navigated the complex tension between personal belief and constitutional duty. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Kennedy co-authored the opinion that maintained the core holding of Roe v. Wade, protecting a woman's right to an abortion before viability. Despite personally opposing abortion, Kennedy wrote that his oath to uphold the Constitution necessitated this ruling. His career, which began in his father's Sacramento law practice after 1963, concluded in 2018, leaving a legacy of decisions that defined the boundaries of American liberty.

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