Former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy served on the nation's highest court for three decades

and was often described as the swing vote in landmark decisions, from marriage equality to campaign finance.

It's a label he's long resisted, even years after his 2018 retirement.

When we spoke last week about his new memoir, Life, Law, and Liberty, he explained why.

Well, it's really the metaphor that's a problem for me.

The metaphor, you see this person swinging back and forth.

And my comment when people say about that is the cases swing, I don't.

And so that's why it seems to me, people can disagree, that my jurisprudence is quite

consistent and it doesn't swing. And so that was one of the things explained in the book.

You were the pivotal voice in cases that expanded LGBTQ rights that preserved abortion rights at the time,

but also a ruling that struck down campaign finance restrictions.

How do you reconcile or explain those strands of your legal philosophy?

The campaign finance cases are very, very difficult.

I'm sure most people don't like the idea that millionaires, maybe billionaires,

come in and spend all this money in a place where they don't even live in order to get somebody elected.

And why should the successful candidate be the one that has the most money?

Something is wrong with that.

So then you're asking me, well, what are you talking about, Kennedy?

Why did you write this?

The answer was that what the Congress had done

was to say that corporations could not give the money.

They forgot that the New York Times was a corporation,

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