Justice Kennedy's Influence Will Grow With Stevens' Retirement

With the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens from the Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy will be moving up in seniority  This means that the Justice who is usually the deciding factor in determining which way the Court goes in a 5-4 decision will get to choose more often who writes the opinion of the Court.

Considering that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia are nearly always on the conservative side of a decision on an ideologically-driven case, that leaves Justice Kennedy as the likely senior Justice when such a decision swings 5-4 for the liberal wing of the Court.  There seems to be an unwritten rule that the senior Justice in the majority chooses who writes the opinion, so this means that the Court's most liberal Justices may not be writing as many opinions as some would expect (or like) them to.

There are many examples of where the power to choose the author has been exercised in an effort to preserve a majority or shape a ruling.  Justice Kennedy already writes a disproportionately large share of the opinions on ideologically-driven cases.  His share could very well increase if he chooses to assign opinions to himself rather than a much more liberal Justice.  A liberal opinion by Justice Kennedy would likely be more narrow than one by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.