Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy spoke broadly in his opening statement, discussing the important role that the Supreme Court plays in our society. He described Elena Kagan’s record, emphasizing her association with Justice Thurgood Marshall–the legal lion who argument Brown v. Board of Education. And he gave the conventional advice to a nominee–be forthcoming, candid, clear, etc.
But ranking Repblican Jeff Sessions set forth a long bill of particulars.
He cast doubt on Kagan’s qualifications, pointing out that she has not served as a judge, “barely” practiced law, never tried a case before a jury, and argued her first appellate case “only 9 months ago.” Experience is going to be an issue in this hearing.
Sessions went on to link Kagan to a variety of hot button issues: her senior thesis in college was about socialism; in the Clinton White House she worked on gun control and abortion; as an academic she “kicked out the military” from recruiting at Harvard; she argued against First Amendment rights in the Supreme Court; and she supports expansive federal power.
Kagan also associated with “activist judges,” including her clerkships with Justice Marshall and with Judge Abner Mikva, a former Democratic Congressman from Illinois who served on the federal appeals court in Washington and in the Clinton White House.
Sessions said that Americans want the courts to be a check on government, not a rubber stamp. And he expressed skepticism that Kagan would fulfill that role.
