Justice Anthony Kennedy to retire from Supreme Court

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter

Updated 1915 GMT (0315 HKT) June 27, 2018

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.

Anthony Kennedy didn't save the liberals

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."

Here are potential contenders to replace Justice Kennedy

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who blocked President Barack Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016 until the presidential election was held, paving the way for Gorsuch, said the Senate will move quickly.

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

Recalling McConnell's action, Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin called for a delay until after the midterm elections this fall.

"Sen. McConnell set the new standard by giving the American people their say in the upcoming election before Court vacancies are filled," Durbin said in a statement. "With so much at stake for the people of our country, the US Senate must be consistent and consider the President's nominee once the new Congress is seated in January."

The swing vote

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.

PHOTOS: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy

Kennedy speaks during a Senate subcommittee hearing in 2002.

Kennedy discusses the court's budget requests with a House committee in April 2005.

Kennedy participates in a panel discussion in Washington in November 2005.

Kennedy receives an honorary degree at New York University in May 2006.

Kennedy delivers the commencement address at New York University.

In February 2007, Kennedy testifies at a Senate committee hearing on judicial security and independence.

Kennedy testifies before a House subcommittee in March 2007. He and fellow Justice Clarence Thomas spoke about concerns with the ongoing remodeling of the court building, the reduction of paperwork due to electronic media, and the disparity of pay between federal judges and lawyers working in the private sector.

The Supreme Court meets with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in September 2009. From left are Samuel Alito, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, Chief Justice John Roberts, Obama, Sonia Sotomayor, Biden, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer and retired Justice David Souter.

Kennedy leaves after a Catholic Mass in Washington in October 2009.

Kennedy joins the President and other officials at a memorial for the victims of a shooting in Tucson, Arizona, in 2011.

Kennedy smiles as he is introduced to faculty members at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in October 2013. Kennedy was teaching there for a week.

Kennedy is saluted by sailors as he tours the USS John C. Stennis in 2015.

Kennedy testifies about a Supreme Court budget request during a House subcommittee meeting in 2015.

President Obama greets Kennedy and other Supreme Court justices before his final State of the Union address in January 2016.

Kennedy, second from left, joins other Supreme Court justices in February 2017 during President Donald Trump's first address to a joint session of Congress.

As President Trump looks on, Kennedy administers the judicial oath to new Justice Neil Gorsuch in April 2017.

Kennedy and Trump walk together after Gorsuch's swearing-in ceremony.

Trump stands with the Supreme Court at Gorsuch's formal investiture ceremony in June 2017. From left are Elena Kagan, Samuel Alito, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kennedy, Chief Justice John Roberts, Trump, Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

Several members of the Supreme Court pose for a portrait before taking part in a procession to mark Harvard Law School's bicentennial in October 2017. On the top row, from left, are Kennedy, Roberts, Breyer and Gorsuch. In front of them are Kagan and retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

Anthony Kennedy, the longest-serving member of the current Supreme Court, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/27/politics/anthony-kennedy-retires/index.html" target="_blank">has announced that he will be retiring</a> at the end of July. Kennedy, 81, was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. He is a conservative justice but has provided crucial swing votes in many cases.

Kennedy was born in Sacramento, California, on July 23, 1936. In this photo, circa 1939, he sits between his mother, Gladys, and his sister, Nancy.

Kennedy wears his Cub Scout uniform as he poses with his brother, Tim, circa 1946.

Kennedy, third from right in the front row, stands with other Cub Scouts in the 1940s.

Kennedy, right, spent time with the California Army National Guard after finishing law school in 1961. The man on the left, John J. Hamlyn Jr., also became a lawyer like Kennedy.

Kennedy, right, and Hamlyn pose for a photo after basic training.

After more than a decade as a lawyer, Kennedy became a judge on the US Court of Appeals in 1975. He was nominated by President Gerald Ford on the recommendation of California Gov. Ronald Reagan.

This courtroom photo of Kennedy was taken in 1976.

Kennedy has breakfast with his wife, Mary, and his son Gregory in 1984.

Kennedy and his wife walk together in Sacramento, California, in 1987.

From 1965 to 1988, Kennedy was also a professor of constitutional law at the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law.

In 1987, Kennedy was nominated by President Reagan to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by Lewis Powell's retirement. The nomination came after the confirmation failures of nominees Robert Bork and Douglas Ginsburg.

Kennedy, center, talks with US Sens. Ted Kennedy, left, and Joe Biden before a confirmation hearing in Washington. The two Kennedys are not related.

Kennedy meets with President Reagan in the Oval Office.

Kennedy is joined by his wife as he is sworn in by Chief Justice William Rehnquist on February 18, 1988. Reagan is on the right.

Kennedy, top right, appears in a formal Supreme Court portrait in April 1988. In the front row, from left, are Thurgood Marshall, William Brennan Jr., Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Byron White and and Harry Blackmun. In the back row, from left, are Antonin Scalia, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor and Kennedy.

Kennedy speaks at the McGeorge School of Law in 1991. He delivered the inaugural address in a lecture series named for the late Archie Hefner, whose portrait is behind Kennedy. Hefner was a prominent Sacramento attorney active in numerous civic and charitable groups. He died in 1988.

Kennedy is on the far right in this Supreme Court portrait from 1998. In the front row, from left, are Antonin Scalia, John Paul Stevens, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor and Kennedy. In the back row, from left, are Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer.

In 2004, Kennedy speaks to high school students at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

"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.

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