The Annotated Bobblehead Justice Anthony Kennedy

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Anthony Kennedy, 1988-2018

Anthony Kennedy was born in 1936 in Sacramento, California. His father was a lawyer and his mother a secretary in the California State Senate. Kennedy became close to Earl Warren, then Governor of California, when he paged for the State Senate from his fourth through his eighth grade year. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford in 1958 and cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1961. After practicing privately in Sacramento, teaching constitutional law at McGeorge School of Law, and helping Governor Ronald Reagan draft a plan to cut taxes and spending in California, Kennedy was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1974 by President Gerald Ford. In 1988, as President Reagan's nominee for the seat vacated by Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., he was unanimously confirmed to the Supreme Court after the failed nominations of Robert Bork and Douglas Ginsburg.