Kennedy Gets Back in the Swing Voter Role

U.S. Supreme Court

Posted Jun 27, 2008, 07:11 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s swing vote made the difference in several of the U.S. Supreme Court’s blockbuster 5-4 decisions in the last three weeks.

Kennedy provided the fifth vote for a majority in yesterday’s decisions overturning a campaign finance law known as the “Millionaire’s Amendment” and striking down a District of Columbia ban on handguns, Bloomberg reports.

He also provided the critical vote in decisions finding a right to habeas for Guantanamo detainees and invaliding the death penalty for child rapists. Kennedy wrote the majority decision in both cases.

Said University of Virginia law professor A.E. Dick Howard: “Anyone who can count can see that he is critical.''

The split decisions come despite efforts of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to find narrow bases for opinions that attract more justices to the majority. Roberts apparently succeeded earlier in the term when justices “avoided their usual rifts and generally sided with workers,” USA Today reports.

In other unusual alliances, liberal John Paul Stevens joined with conservatives to uphold a voter ID law and to reject a challenge to lethal injections. But he wrote the dissent in the gun case, District of Columbia v. Heller.

Former U.S. Solicitor General Walter Dellinger, who argued three major cases this term, doesn’t think the shifting alliances signals a change. "Is this a sign of moderation? No," he told USA Today. "I think it is the docket" of cases this term "and not the justices."

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