{"id":147520,"date":"2018-06-28T04:55:01","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T04:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/trump-begins-supreme-court-search-to-replace-anthony-kennedy\/"},"modified":"2018-06-28T04:55:01","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T04:55:01","slug":"trump-begins-supreme-court-search-to-replace-anthony-kennedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/trump-begins-supreme-court-search-to-replace-anthony-kennedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump begins Supreme Court search to replace Anthony Kennedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Justice Kennedy and President Trump\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/17A9B\/production\/_102232969_epa.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  EPA<figcaption>Image caption                                      US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy&#039;s retirement hands Mr Trump a second pick on the top court                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">US President Donald Trump has said the search for a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy will &quot;begin immediately&quot;. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;We have to pick one that&#039;s going to be there for 40 years, 45 years,&quot; Mr Trump said at a rally in North Dakota.<\/p>\n<p>The retirement of Mr Kennedy, a conservative who sided with liberals on many votes, gives Mr Trump the chance to shift the balance of the top court further to the right for decades to come.<\/p>\n<p>The judge, 81, will retire on 31 July.<\/p>\n<p>He made the announcement on Wednesday, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family after 30 years on the top court. Mr Trump later praised Mr Kennedy - who held the pivotal vote on many key cases - as &quot;a great justice of the Supreme Court&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Hopefully we are going to pick somebody who will be as outstanding,&quot; he told reporters at the White House. The judge&#039;s retirement gives Mr Trump his second Supreme Court pick since he became president, and he has said he will choose from a list of 25 conservative candidates.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Analysis: Why a fight over US abortion law looms<\/li>\n<li>Why is the US Supreme Court so important?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Supreme Court plays a key role in American life and is often the final word on highly contentious laws, disputes between states and the federal government, and final appeals to stay executions.<\/p>\n<p>This week the court upheld Mr Trump&#039;s travel ban which covers people from several Muslim-majority countries, in a 5-4 conservative majority ruling. Earlier this month it ruled in favour of a baker in Colorado who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at the rally in Fargo, North Dakota on Wednesday evening, President Trump told supporters that Mr Kennedy had chosen to retire under his presidency &quot;because he felt confident in me to make the right choice and carry on his great legacy&quot;. <\/p>\n<p>The president has promised to draw names from the same list from which he picked Neil Gorsuch in February last year. <\/p>\n<p>Mr Kennedy, who is the second-oldest justice on the nine-member US Supreme Court, earned a reputation as a swing vote conservative who supported liberal arguments on key decisions, including the 5-4 rulings that decided same-sex marriage and upheld abortion rights.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, news of his retirement has raised fears among pro-choice groups that access to legal abortions in several states could be under threat. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Top US court deals blow to public unions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mr Trump, during his presidential campaign, vowed to attempt to overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision legalising abortion throughout the US.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;If we put another two or perhaps three justices on, that is really what will happen. That will happen automatically in my opinion. Because I am putting pro-life justices on the court,&quot; Mr Trump said during an October 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  EPA<figcaption>Image caption                                      Anti-abortion activists say Justice Kennedy&#039;s retirement is a &quot;pivotal moment&quot;                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said on Wednesday that a vote on Mr Trump&#039;s nominee to replace Mr Kennedy would take place by the autumn.<\/p>\n<p>The Senate is currently controlled by the Republicans but that could change after mid-term elections in November. <\/p>\n<p>Top Democrat Chuck Schumer said in a televised speech on the floor of the Senate that Mr Kennedy&#039;s replacement would be a decision affecting &quot;generations&quot; and therefore the confirmation vote should not take place until after the mid-terms. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Our Republican colleagues in the Senate should follow the rule they set in 2016, not to consider a Supreme Court Justice in an election year,&quot; Senator Schumer said, referring to the blocking of President Obama&#039;s nominee Merrick Garland by the Republican Senate majority. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Anything but that would be the absolute height of hypocrisy.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>Who is Anthony Kennedy?<\/h2>\n<p>Mr Kennedy, who was raised in California, was nominated by President Ronald Reagan and began his term in 1988. <\/p>\n<p>He voted conservative on issues of campaign finance, voting rights and gun rights.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Kennedy penned the Supreme Court&#039;s first major gay-rights decision in 1996, protecting LGBT Americans from discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>In 2015, he authored the landmark opinion which gave LGBT citizens the right to marry, writing: &quot;They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law and the Constitution grants them that right.&quot;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Meet the Supremes - the nine judges on US top court<\/li>\n<li>Not best of times in US, says top justice<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As a justice, he routinely favoured personal liberty and the limiting of federal power. <\/p>\n<p>Mr Trump said Mr Kennedy had &quot;displayed great vision&quot; and &quot;tremendous heart&quot;. <\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  AFP\/Getty Images                                                    <\/figure>\n<p>The White House also released a statement thanking Mr Kennedy for his 30 years of service as a &quot;tireless voice for individual rights&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;His words have left an indelible mark not only on this generation, but on the fabric of American history.&quot;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright EPAImage caption US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy&#039;s retirement hands Mr Trump a second pick on the top court US President Donald Trump has said the search for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":147521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}