The State - News from Feb. 9, 1988

Newly confirmed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy of Sacramento returned to the state Senate chamber where he once worked as a page and delivered a gentle lecture to California lawmakers on protecting citizens. Kennedy, formerly a professor of constitutional law, reminded the legislators that the U.S. Constitution should be “pre-eminent” in their minds as they enact laws. Kennedy, who as a youngster in the 1940s served as the upper house’s first and only page, awed current senators by reciting from memory the names on a Senate roll call from years gone by. He said the opportunity to speak in the Senate fulfilled “an aspiration that I have long cherished.”