DEMS/GOP/OBAMA/POLLS/SUPREME COURT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Republican appointee who provided key swing votes for same-sex marriage, abortion access and affirmative action, has announced his retirement from the Supreme Court. This decision will affect the court for a long time to come as President Donald Trump will have his second chance to nominate a justice in less than two years in office. This time, Republicans who control the Senate may try to speed up the process, to get a nominee seated before midterm elections in November. It would be a switch from the last year of the Barack Obama presidency, when Republicans slowed down the process to block Obama’s nominee. No wonder Americans think the process is too political. A large majority of respondents to a spring 2017 Quinnipiac poll, taken just after Trump’s first nominee, Neil Gorsuch, was confirmed, said the process of confirming Supreme Court justices has become too partisan — with 68% saying so, compared with 13% who said it’s the ‘right amount’ of partisanship. All partisan groups showed a majority saying it has become too partisan — 62% of Republicans and 71% of Democrats and independents. But Republicans were twice as likely to say it’s the right amount of partisan — 22% to Democrats’ 11% and independents’ 10%.
-Grace Sparks, “Americans think the Supreme Court nomination process is way too partisan,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, June 27, 2018 4:38 pm