The Power Broker

In a partisan age, Kennedy is almost bound to disappoint. "Liberals don't like him because he is conservative most of the time and extreme conservatives don't like him because he is not conservative all of the time," says Willard. Not just right-to-lifers but many conservatives were bitter when Kennedy, a Ronald Reagan appointee, voted in a 1992 decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, to uphold what he, O'Connor and Souter called "the essential holding of Roe v. Wade," the Supreme Court's 1973 decision giving women a right to abortion.

Kennedy can, in fact, paint with a broad brush. "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life," declared an opinion signed by Justices Kennedy, Souter and O'Connor in the Casey decision. Kennedy (who, it later turned out, drafted the language) quoted the same passage in a 2003 majority opinion striking down laws against gay sodomy. In a dissent to the court's gay-rights decision, Justice Scalia mockingly referred to this language as the "famed sweet-mystery-of-life passage." Another federal judge, Robert Beezer of the U.S. Court of Appeals, wrote in 1996 that Kennedy's formulation is "so broad and melodramatic as to seem almost comical in its rhetorical flourish."

Kennedy, 70, is tall, dapper and shows no sign of slowing down. Chief Justice Roberts has tried, so far without much success, to get the justices to speak with fewer voices. He wants them to write fewer "concurrences"—judicial opinions that, like Kennedy's in the school-desegregation case, reach the same conclusion as the majority but articulate different reasons. Asked by NEWSWEEK about this effort, Kennedy laughed and interjected, "I guess I haven't helped much. My initial reaction was going to be, 'Just let me write all the opinions'."

With Katie Connolly

© 2007