The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

This chapter covers the effect that Bush v. Gore had on Justice Kennedy, who seemed to move leftward in his decisions after that case. In part, he was stung by the criticism the Court received for their involvement, and in part he was influenced by his increasing international excursions. In the 1990s, he began visiting Salzburg, Austria each summer. A law school he had taught at began a summer program at the University of Salzburg, for which he taught, and he attended conferences at the “Salzburg Seminar” as well. The latter was held at the Schloss Leopoldskron, an old castle, and after the fall of Communism in Europe in the early 1990s, much focus was put on advising nascent democracies.

Both Kennedy and O’Connor took part in this, and these meetings and discussions with international legal scholars had an impact on Kennedy. Also, foreign judges were often guest speakers at the Court’s lunches. Over time, what had begun as a one-way flow of information with the U.S. advising countries on drafting their constitutions started to become a two-way exchange of ideas. European democracies were more liberal than the U.S. on many issues, particularly the death penalty, and these ideas began to have a presence at the Court.