Judicial Reveiw Closing Blog

Controversy regarding Elena Kagan, President Obama’s nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, continues for Senators. Kagan has never served on a bench, and therefore, has no “paper trial” for Senators to review not to mention the fact that she may not be able to vote on a number of cases over the next year due to her previous position as Solicitor General.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to begin June 28th. Last Thursday morning, May 20th, to many Senators dismay news that the tens of thousands of documents relating to her service in the Clinton White House may not be produced before the start of her confirmation hearing. These documents are the missing link concerning her stance on issues that otherwise could be evaluated had she served as a judge.
Earlier in the week the staff of the National Archives and Records Administration had begun combing through tens of millions of papers and e-mails at Bill Clinton's presidential library in Little Rock to find the relevant files, and plans to start turning them over to the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 4, according to Archivist David S. Ferriero.
Julie Hirshfeld Davis reported that Republicans and Democrats believe notes, memos, e-mails and other material from Kagan's tenure at the White House could provide insight into her opinions. She said, “One memo Kagan wrote in 1997 has already emerged and become fodder for critics on the right and left. In it, Kagan urged Clinton to back a ban on late-term abortions, an attempt at a compromise designed to head off passage of a more restrictive bill. Advocates of abortion rights opposed the compromise because it would have limited a woman's ability to terminate a pregnancy. Abortion rights foes also blasted the proposal as an attempt to gut stronger restrictions. In one-on-one meetings on Capitol Hill, Kagan has told senators she considers abortion rights to be settled law — a stock response among judicial nominees of all political stripes.”
In addition, even if Senators can access this vital information, they must then take into account that Kagan will have to disqualify herself from ruling on a significant number of cases if she is confirmed. That's because for the last year, she has served as the government's chief appellate advocate, and the government is a party in roughly 40 percent of the cases heard each term.
In despite of the fact that she will not rule in the first year on the bench most speculate that Obama hopes that Kagan will balance as the next liberal voice in the conservative leaning Court. David Axelrod said "The president feels strongly she has the qualities of a leader," as reported by Chip Reid from CBS News.com. Reid went on to say “I think what they're trying to say with their somewhat cryptic talking points is that they think she's so smart and so engaging that she'll be able to find new ways to decide important cases that keep the court from dividing 5-4 along rigid ideological lines. How she'll do that they didn't even give a hint. But they seem confident she can shift the court in a more progressive direction with creative new arguments, and that she'll be there long enough to make a profound difference on the direction of the Court.”
Although these points are major, most feel that Kagan is still a “safe bet,” Her overall experience in all three branches government, and time as the first female Dean of Harvard Law School show that she has ample knowledge of law and policy. Michael Fauntroy, a professor of Public Policy at George Mason University said, "The key thing is that she is very certain to be confirmed to the court unless the left rises up in opposition, and today that hasn't happened with enough force for the White House to pull back from the nomination."


References:
topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/.../index.html
www.daylife.com/article/03tp5upa2u0Tt?q=Politics
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/.../kagan-speech-rationing/
www.thenewstribune.com/2010/.../archivist-obama-wont-block-kagan.html
www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20004584-503544.html
www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=1070