On Capitol Hill this week, Democratic lawmakers will make a last-ditch attempt to get the financial regulations bill passed before heading into mid-term elections. Democratic Senators are also struggling to extend unemployment benefits to the nation's jobless, but have yet to secure enough votes to avoid a Republican filibuster. And while the Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, it is likely Republicans will delay Tuesday's vote until next week.
Outside the beltway, this week marks the start of earnings season. Investors and economics will be watching closely to see if the economy is on the road to recovery or headed for a double-dip recession.
In her first day of questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan got off to a rocky start in a nearly 20-minute back-and-forth debate with ranking Republican Senator Jeff Sessions. In the sparring session, Sen. Sessions maintained that Kagan had circumvented the law and was disrespectful to the military when she limited military recruiters' access to campus as dean of Harvard Law School. Kagan repeatedly said Harvard was always in compliance with the law.
If confirmed to the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Elena Kagan will only be the fourth woman to serve on the bench. Yesterday, we spoke with Lori Ringhand, a professor of law at the University of Georgia about a new study that shows that women and minorities get harsher questioning in hearings. Takeaway listeners had lots to say.
Over hours of confirmation hearings yesterday, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan faced tough questioning from senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. For nearly twenty minutes, ranking Republican Jeff Sessions asked Kagan about her policies banning military recruiters from campus while she was the dean of Harvard Law School. Kagan repeatedly said recruiters were never banned and that she always complied with the law, as she saw it. In response, Sessions told the nominee her remarks were "unconnected to reality."
Later in the day, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch from Utah explained his personal frustrations with criticisms on Citizens United v. FEC, the controversial campaign finance ruling by the Supreme Court. Kagan argued the case on behalf of the federal government as Solicitor General and maintained that as a justice, she would respect "settled law" and Supreme Court "precedent." It was the same answer she used when asked about the Second Amendment and Roe v. Wade.
So a female legal scholar and Ivy League dean faces the Senate Judiciary Committee today, while a male military scholar and Ivy League PhD faces the Senate Armed Services Committee. The tone of the two hearings will be very different for some obvious reasons.
Petraeus is beloved of both parties and has already commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan. His confirmation is a foregone conclusion. On the other hand, it’s not going to be easy for Elena Kagan, whose confirmation is hers to lose based on her support among majority Democrats. The irony is that Petraeus’s Ivy League credentials, coupled with his military experience, are likely to be intimidating to questioning Senators, while the fact that Kagan was the dean of the Harvard Law School is going to be an opening for questioning her lack of experience as a judge.
Most of the Senators are lawyers, so maybe that is the entre to be tough on Kagan. Petraeus’s academic degrees, however, are in international relations and public administration, which are hardly obscure subjects for opinionated Senators. Yet, while Petraeus’s credentials seem to be a restraining force on the Senators of the Armed Services Committee, it’s more of an “open season” on Kagan over the Judiciary.
We’ve seen a rise of the scholar-general in the Pentagon. It’s a good thing to enlarge the expertise of military leaders, but does it elevate them to an untouchable priesthood? In the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln — the self made scholar — became a self-made military tactician because he wanted to be able to second guess the frustrating military leadership of the Union Army. Despite his lack of experience, Lincoln's oversight led to the Union victory, while disastrous decisions by generals like MacClellan, Hooker and Burnside aided Confederate forces. If generals with PhDs intimidate civilian political leaders, what quality of oversight can we expect in the Afghanistan War? If Lincoln wasn’t intimidated by his generals, then Obama and the Senate shouldn’t be either. And why should it be any different for Supreme Court nominees?
He nicknamed her "Shorty," and she refers to him as one of her "judicial heroes," but in their storied lives and careers, neither of them probably expected what transpired in yesterday's meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee. As Solicitor General Elena Kagan sits on the precipice of becoming only the fourth woman in history to sit on the Supreme Court, the name of another barrier-breaking justice, Thurgood Marshall, may turn into her biggest liability.
With no history of judicial activity to examine, Republicans are focusing on the year Kagan spent clerking for Marshall in 1988, when she was 28-years-old. To the befuddlement of some, Republicans are decrying the civil rights pioneer as a "well-known liberal activist judge," as Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, the raking Republican on the Judiciary committee, described him. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), told The Salt Lake Tribune that he wasn't sure whether he would vote to confirm Marshall if given the chance.
Senate confirmation hearings for Solicitor General Elena Kagan began yesterday. If confirmed, Kagan would become the fourth woman to sit on the country's highest bench. But before she dons that black robe, Kagan must undergo a week of grilling by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The process of a week-long question-and-answer session for nominees began in 1939. A new study reviewed the hundreds of hours of transcripts from confirmation hearings over the last 70 years and found the process can often produce substantive information indicating the changing of the times. It also shows that women and minority candidates are often questioned more thoroughly and pressed further on their judicial philosophies.
Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan begin today. But this news was overshadowed by the death this morning of Sen. Robert Byrd.
Takeaway Washington correspondent, Todd Zwillich looks at the record of Sen. Byrd and previews the Kagan hearings, along with Jamal Greene, associate professor of law at Columbia Law School and former law clerk for Justice Stevens.
It's a major day for the Supreme Court. It's not only the first day of Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings, but also the last day of the court's term and the end of Justice Stevens' tenure on the bench. But before the court breaks for the summer, there are four remaining cases on which the judges are expected to rule.
Confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan begin on Monday and we want to hear from you. What do you want to know about the Supreme Court nominee. If you could ask Kagan anything, what would you ask her?
You may not have heard much in the last week about Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings. They start Monday, and usually a Senate Judiciary Committee grilling of a prospective new Justice generates a lot more "pre-trial" buzz than this one has.
For that, thank the lawmakers who worked nearly 24 hours straight to wrap up a high-profile and hard-lobbied deal on Wall St. regulations on Thursday. Thank Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who owned the news cycle for 48 hours after running his mouth then losing his job. Thank BP.
White House political advisor David Axelrod knew it when he briefed reporters by phone Friday. “Because things have been rather dull in Washington, we’ve scheduled these Supreme Court hearings, just to liven the festivities,” he joked.
Then Axelrod got serious. “We also live in an extraordinarily polarized political climate and therefore we are preparing to make a vigorous case” in Kagan’s defense, he said. That defense, of course, is against Republicans on the committee and their supporters outside the Hart 216 hearing room. They will be trying a few different plays to gain traction against a nominee who has largely avoided close scrutiny from the general public so far.
More light will be shed today on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's legal history. The William J. Clinton Presidential Library is set to release 11,000 emails written by Kagan during her tenure as a domestic policy aide and White House counsel in the Clinton Administration. The emails come on top of another 160,000 pages of previously released documents, far more information than the Senate Judiciary panel has received from other recent nominees.
It turns out Supreme Court nominees have to fill out job applications just like everyone else. OK, not quite like everyone else. Take a look at Elena Kagan's completed questionnaire from the Senate Judiciary Committee, which this summer will hold hearings to test her nomination to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court.
UPDATE: The Senate will begin its Judiciary Committee Supreme Court Justice confirmation hearings on June 28.
As Elena Kagan prepares for her confirmation hearings, we are wondering: What should she read? Essence Magazine senior editor Patrik Henry Bass came up with some suggested reading for the nominee as she awaits her confirmation hearings.
Do you have recommended reading for her? Share your suggested book list in the comments.
Here's Patrik's list:
(You can follow Todd on Twitter @Todd_Zwillich)
All week, we've been examining President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Solicitor General Elena Kagan. If she is confirmed, there will be three women on the bench, six Catholics, three Jews and no Protestants. We asked you how much diversity her nomination would add to the nation's highest court and hear what you have to say.
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