Nomination of Elena Kagan

[resigned]

Obama picks Kagan as Supreme Court nominee

Sun May 9, 2010

WASHINGTON, May 9 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has picked solicitor general Elena Kagan as his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, NBC News reported on Sunday, choosing a relative moderate who may still face questions from Republican Senators on gays in the military.

White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation of the NBC report, which gave no source for the information.

Kagan's appointment will buck a four-decade trend if she is confirmed by the Senate because all justices in recent decades have been judges.

Kagan has served as a White House adviser during Bill Clinton's presidency and a Harvard Law School dean but never as a judge.

If confirmed, Kagan would be only the fourth woman ever to be a Supreme Court justice.

Her nomination is unlikely to cause a damaging fight in the Senate ahead of congressional mid-term elections in November or distract the Obama administration from other issues like jobs, financial regulation and climate change leglislation.

But Kagan could still have to deal with vigorous questioning by Republicans during her Senate confirmation on hot-button issues like her opposition to on-campus military recruiting at Harvard because of U.S. policy barring gays from serving openly in the military.

Obama appointed Kagan last year as the first female solicitor general, representing the U.S. government before the Supreme Court. Her initial Supreme Court argument in September was her first in any court.

Obama he wants his choice approved before the start of the high court's upcoming term in October.

The retirement of liberal Justice John Paul Stevens, 90, who has been on the court for nearly 35 years, takes effect at the end of the current term in late June.

Democrats control 59 of the 100 Senate seats. A simple majority is needed for confirmation.

Kagan would not be expected to change the court's basic ideological balance. Like Stevens, she would probably side in most cases with the three other liberal justices on the court, which is controlled by a five-member conservative majority.

She would join Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, who Obama appointed last year, as the court's female justices.

The last two justices who had not been judges, William Rehnquist and Lewis Powell, joined the Supreme Court in 1972.

(Additional reporting by Jim Vicini, Editing by Alistair Bell and Eric Walsh)

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN092 ... arketsNews

[resigned]

[resigned]

Obama chooses non-judge Elena Kagan for Supreme Court

“She hasn’t spent one day in a robe.” This is shaping up as the biggest early knock on Solicitor General Elena Kagan, President Obama’s pick to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. Is this lack of judicial experience really a liability? History suggests it may not be.

Though it has been nearly four decades since a non-judge was appointed to the Supreme Court, the non-judges who have been named in the recent past have significantly reshaped the institution. The last non-judge to ascend to the High Court, for instance, was William Rehnquist, appointed in 1972, who eventually ascended to Chief Justice. As Chief Justice, Rehnquist shifted the court’s center of gravity rightward, with opinions that narrowed the rights of accused criminals and limited the scope of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, among others.

In this respect, Rehnquist followed in the footsteps of the man who is arguably the most historically important Chief Justice of the 20th century: Earl Warren, who, like Rehnquist, held a law degree but had never sat on a court. When President Dwight Eisenhower picked him as Chief Justice in 1953, he was Governor of California, the only individual to have been elected to that office three times. Some Supreme Court scholars have argued that Warren’s political skills proved critical in preparing an opinion that could secure a unanimous vote in the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which outlawed racial segregation in public schools.

Kagan currently serves as Solicitor General, the Administration’s chief lawyer before the Supreme Court. In truth, her lack of experience as a judge is purely accidental: President Bill Clinton had nominated her for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit during his term in office, but the Republican-controlled Senate never brought her nomination to the floor for a confirmation vote.

Reports on Kagan thus far have taken note of her success at broadening the intellectual diversity of the Harvard Law School faculty and serving as a bridge between conservative and liberal faculty during her tenure as dean. This suggests that she may possess similar political skills to those of Chief Justice Warren, which would make her an ideal choice for Obama, who has been known to want a counterweight to Chief Justice John Roberts on the current court.


http://www.huliq.com/8738/Obama ... reme-court

[gwen]

Excellent choice, IMO. Thanks for all the info, pat!

[yankee-in-france]

Yes, thanks, Pat. My immediate reaction is she's a bit too conservative, but in the spirit of what is good for the country, I will put aside my liberal bias.

[pax]

I'm interested in learning more about her. Especially by watching the confirmation hearings.

[pax]

Kagan speaks from 9:07 on.

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[yankee-in-france]

Why is this even necessary? What does her sexuality have to do with her qualifications?
_____________________________________________________________

Kagan's friends step forward to squelch gay rumors

Wed May 12, 1:14 pm ET

Worried that weeks of rumors were turning into a major distraction, the White House is finally pushing back on all the speculation about Elena Kagan's love life. She's not gay, one of the Supreme Court nominee's best friends tells Politico reporter Ben Smith.

Administration officials hope the testimonials of Sarah Walzer and other Kagan friends will quiet speculation about the nominee's sexual orientation fanned by blogger Andrew Sullivan. In March, blogger Ben Domenech raised the same issue, referring to Kagan as "openly gay" in a post later removed by CBS News' online commentary syndicate after protests from the White House over the "smear."

The speculation was clearly fueling wider public interest as well. Yahoo! statistics indicate that 15 percent of computer searches on Kagan focused on her personal life, with the majority of those targeting her sexual orientation and marital status. And on Google, phrases like "Elena Kagan gay" and "Elena Kagan personal life" were among the top trending searches.

Walzer, a Kagan pal since they roomed together at Harvard Law School in the mid-'80s, told Ben Smith that Kagan is definitely not a lesbian.

"I know she's straight," Walzer said. "She dated men when we were in law school, we talked about men — who in our class was cute, who she would like to date, all of those things. She definitely dated when she was in D.C. after law school, when she was in Chicago — and she just didn't find the right person."

And former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who knew Kagan during her undergrad days at Princeton, emailed Smith to note helpfully that "I did not go out with her, but other guys did."

Will this be enough to stop the rumors? In a post Tuesday night, Sullivan responded to the Politico story: "That was easy, wasn't it?"

It's not clear why White House officials let the rumors get this far. After knocking down the Domenech post, Obama officials would only talk about Kagan's sexuality on background. According to Smith's story, Kagan's friends did not speak out sooner because they wanted to "avoid offending gay friends by implying that there would be any problem if she were a lesbian."

So far the nation's powerful heterosexual lobby hasn't weighed in on this latest disclosure about Kagan's personal life.

— Holly Bailey is a senior political writer for Yahoo! News.

[yankee-in-france]

Kagan courts potential GOP ally during Hill visits

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Associated Press Writer
Tue May 18, 3:02 am ET

WASHINGTON – Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan once clashed with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham over the treatment of terrorism detainees.

Now she's looking for his support in her drive to win confirmation as President Barack Obama's choice to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

Kagan is returning to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to resume courtesy calls with senators, including Graham, a potential GOP ally despite their past differences.

The South Carolinian was the architect in 2005 of a measure that strictly limited the rights of Guantanamo prisoners to challenge their detentions. Kagan, then the dean of Harvard Law School, signed a strongly worded letter with other academics criticizing the legislation, which was struck down by the Supreme Court.

Graham voted "pass" last year when the Judiciary Committee approved Kagan's nomination to be solicitor general, then missed her final confirmation vote. But he hinted last week that he might be persuaded to vote "yes" on making her a justice.

"I have been generally pleased with her job performance as solicitor general, particularly regarding legal issues related to the war on terror," Graham said in a statement, adding he would be "fair and firm" in questioning her.

Graham has shown a willingness to buck his party on big issues. He broke with most Republicans last year to back Obama's first Supreme Court pick, Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Kagan, who stepped aside Monday from her post as the government's top lawyer, has so far met with more than a dozen senators — most of the members of the Judiciary panel that will hold her confirmation hearings. Democrats have more than enough votes to confirm her, and Republicans, seven of whom voted to make her solicitor general, say for now they're not inclined to try to block a vote.

Kagan's meeting schedule Tuesday also includes a strong critic, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, as well as two Democrats who are backers, Sens. Al Franken of Minnesota and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.