(RNN) - Justice Anthony Kennedy announced he would be retiring from the Supreme Court shortly after the final announcement of the session Wednesday.
Rumors of Kennedy's retirement have swirled for weeks as the 80-year-old justice neared the end of his 29th year on the court. He turns 81 in July.
Adding fuel to the rumor mill was a reunion of Kennedy's law clerks planned for 2018 that was moved up to this year.
Kennedy's retirement comes shortly after becoming the first Supreme Court justice to serve alongside a former clerk of his following the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch. His replacement will be the second Supreme Court nominee for President Donald Trump, an usually fast timeframe for nominating a second justice.
Trump could become the third-fastest president to have multiple justices confirmed to the court, behind George Washington and Chester Arthur.
Following the death of Antonin Scalia, Kennedy became the most senior associate justice on the Supreme Court. That honor now belongs to Clarence Thomas. He was also the second-oldest behind Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 84.
A Ronald Reagan appointee, Kennedy was a strong conservative voice on the Court, and his voting record showed his support of the rights of the individual. His conservatism did not define his ideology, and Kennedy found himself casting the swing vote on an unusually high number of 5-4 decisions.
He cast the deciding vote in the controversial 2000 Bush v. Gore decision that stopped the recount of presidential ballots in closely contested Florida, giving the election to George W. Bush. He was the deciding vote on Citizens United, which ruled that corporate donations to political campaigns are protected as free speech. He wrote the majority opinion on the decision that upheld the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.
However, he voted with the majority to uphold women's abortion rights established in the Roe v. Wade decision, and he cast the deciding vote in striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
President Reagan nominated Kennedy to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 following a stint on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Kennedy was approved unanimously.
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