Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already promised a swift vote on Anthony Kennedy’s replacement.  My how times change.  Democrats are ready to return the favor McConnell delivered them two years ago.

Kennedy’s retirement announcement is perhaps the most consequential event of Donald Trump’s presidency and the far right has to be licking their chops over the possibility, and probability that the Supreme Court will soon be Trump-packed.  What’s at stake?  What’s not?  Abortion rights, civil rights, gay rights.  God help us but the Supreme Court could be nothing more than a rubber stamp for Trump’s agenda.  From Vox.com:

“What will change are rulings on issues where Kennedy has helped maintain a shaky 5-4 center-left consensus. Because of the court’s longstanding principle of stare decisis, or obeying past precedent barring a compelling reason not to do so, some liberal Court achievements are likely to stay. But a Court without Kennedy is substantially more likely to:

  • Overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states (and maybe the federal government too) to ban most or all abortions.
  • Reject challenges to capital punishment and solitary confinement.
  • Rule in favor of religious challenges to anti-discrimination law, and perhaps, in an extreme case, reverse some past Supreme Court rulings on gay rights.
  • Bar government actors from engaging in explicit race-based affirmative action.”

 

What will happen in the confirmation process?  it’s going to be war.

Who will replace Kennedy?  Donald Trump has said it will be someone from the original list of 25 names he announced before nominating Justice Gorsuch.  Politico has the list, predictably packed with conservatives.