era on capitol hill. rhode island congressman patrick kennedy says he will not seek re-election in november. that means next january will mark the first time no kennedy has served in congress for nearly 50 years. congressman kennedy will make an official announcement in a tv ad sunday. i m so grateful to the people of rhode island. when i made missteps or suffered setbacks you responded not with contempt, but compassion. nbc s kelly o donnell is on capitol hill right now. what went into his decision to decide not to seek re-election? reporter: well it s been something that s been a long time coming. i ve spoke on it a number of people very close to him. for about ten months he s really weighed this decision before his father s passing back in august, that certainly was one of the factors, as well as the very basic issue that at almost 43 years old more than half of his life has been in elective public office. he was first elected at age 21 as a student in providence
chief political correspondent for the washington examiner and joins us now. this stems from last year with the president and the court block that was sitting there, where in a break with typical protocol, he took a direct shot at the justices, prompting samuel alito to nod, no, that s not true, speaking to the president s description of their ruling. now there are serious questions about if we could have a state of the union address, a, with any supreme court justices, or, b, with just members of the liberal block sitting there, and no roberts, no alito, no kennedy, no scalia, no thomas. well, what the chief justice does, what john roberts does, will be extremely important. this event at the state of the union, of course, was january, 2010. in march, 2010, the chief justice was giving a speech and said that called the development or what the
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