Today Justice John Paul Stevens announced that he will retire from the Supreme Court at the end of the term.   Stevens, who was nominated to the Court in 1975 by President Gerald Ford, is the Court’s Senior Associate Justice.

Michael B. Keegan, President of People For the American Way, issued the following statement:

“Justice Stevens deserves our deepest thanks for his service to our country.  In his years on the Court, he’s been a guardian of the rights and liberties of ordinary Americans, and shown a commitment to the core constitutional values that are the foundation of our democracy.  In scores of decisions, he’s provided crucial leadership to the Court, most recently in his ringing dissent in Citizens United v. FEC, which struck down more than a century of settled law limiting corporate influence in elections.

“His retirement will give President Obama his second opportunity to nominate a jurist for our nation’s Highest Court.  I hope he will select someone who will continue Justice Stevens’s tradition of working to ensure that individuals receive the fair treatment that our Constitution guarantees.  In recent years, the Court has given extraordinary preference to powerful interests at the expense of ordinary Americans.  Justice Stevens was a bulwark against that trend.  Our country’s next Justice must play a similar role.”

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