Anthony Kennedy: Governance

Anthony Kennedy is Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Explore interesting quotes on governance.
Anthony Kennedy: 56 quotes1 like

“First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.”

Anthony Kennedy

Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002) (Opinion of the Court).

“Some kinds of government regulation of private consensual homosexual behavior may face substantial constitutional challenge.”

Anthony Kennedy

Beller v. Middendorf, 632 F.2d 788, 809-10 (9th Cir. 1980) upholding a Navy discharge for homosexual conduct.

“Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people. […] The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information to reach consensus is a precondition to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it. […] By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.”

Anthony Kennedy

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) (Opinion of the Court).

“I knew Earl Warren very well, on a somewhat professional basis. Professional, as in I was a nine-year-old page boy and he was the Governor. We knew his children and played in the Governor's Mansion and so forth. I have a letter I've given to the Supreme Court Historical Society, in which he wrote and said, "You're going to go very far in government." I'm very proud of the fact that I knew well someone who later became the Chief Justice of the United States.”

Anthony Kennedy

Interview for Academy of Achievement (3 June 2005).

“When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.”

Anthony Kennedy

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) (Opinion of the Court).

“The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.”

Anthony Kennedy

International Society for Krishna Consciousness v. Lee, 505 U.S. 672 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=505&invol=672 (concurring opinion) (26 June 1992).

“The argument, in essence, is that protected speech may be banned as a means to ban unprotected speech. This analysis turns the First Amendment upside down. The Government may not suppress lawful speech as the means to suppress unlawful speech. Protected speech does not become unprotected merely because it resembles the latter. The Constitution requires the reverse.”

Anthony Kennedy

Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002) (Opinion of the Court).