Comments on: It’s Justice Kennedy’s Court Now

By: RonF

RonF — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 23:30:35 +0000

I think the Court got it right on that one. Not that I buy off on physician-assisted suicide, but I do buy off that it’s the province of the State legislatures, not the Federal courts.

By: gengwall

gengwall — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 14:15:41 +0000

I thought it interesting how prophetic this is. In the first real significant case of the post O’Conner era - Gonzales v Oregon - (I know SDO was involved but she really is a lame duck now) it seems quite an interesting coincidence (or maybe not) that Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion for the majority. Furthermore, assuming Alito were on the court and would have sided with the dissenters, Kennedy would surely be considered the “swing” vote in what would have then been a 5-4 decision. (BTW did you read Scalia’s dissent? - Very Alito-like analysis, albeit with Scalia-like sarcasm and disdain)

By: Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » Even with Alito, reproductive rights are not doomed

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 22:08:00 +0000

[…] However, I should have also pointed out that even when Alito is confirmed, his anti-abortion views won’t dominate the Court. With Alito on the Court, the person replacing O’Connor as the swing vote will be Justice Kennedy. And although I think Kennedy is worse than O’Connor on abortion (most notably, he voted in favor of vague “partial birth” abortion bans), it doesn’t seem likely that Kennedy - who voted with O’Connor on the Casey decision - would want to eviscerate Roe. […]