(05-19-2010 08:52 AM)moe24 Wrote: (05-19-2010 08:46 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote: Kagen is not the hill I want Republicans, Conservatives or Tea Partiers to die on.
I would have agreed with you a week or two ago. But the more that is revealed about her the more and more obvious it is becoming that she is 100% incompetent and should have no place on the bench (at any level, let alone the SCOTUS). While I doubt this is a fight the GOP can win (especially with the Dem-Lites that are still in office) it should be a priority to bring to light just how absurd her positions really are.
Gee, what's the rush guys? Going to have hearings BEFORE they get all the paperwork reviewed? Sounds like there is something in there somewhere that could be a can of worms.
WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman says his panel will hold confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan starting June 28.
Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said Wednesday the schedule should allow the hearings to be completed before senators go home for a weeklong break in early July.
That would put the Senate on track to meet President Barack Obama's timetable of voting on Kagan's confirmation before the Senate's August recess.
Democrats have more than enough votes to confirm Kagan, Obama's choice to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Republicans have so far shown little inclination to block the move.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators are plowing through reams of files detailing Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's background and record as they search for clues to what kind of justice she would be.
Kagan, President Barack Obama's pick to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, was to return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for one-on-one meetings with the senators who will vote on her confirmation.
The White House on Tuesday sent the Senate Judiciary Committee thousands of pages of Kagan's speeches and writings, including her work as solicitor general and her articles as an undergraduate staff writer on Princeton University's campus newspaper.
The papers were a response to a questionnaire sent to Kagan by the judiciary panel, which will hold hearings on her confirmation. They were released as the White House tried to paint a fuller picture of Obama's nominee, whose thin record of legal writings has left Republicans and even some Democrats suspicious of her views.
Obama's team arranged a conference call for reporters Wednesday with former Clinton administration aides to discuss Kagan's "character and qualifications" for the Supreme Court.
Kagan's work as a domestic policy adviser and associate White House counsel to former President Bill Clinton has raised doubts among lawmakers in both parties.
Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., wrote Tuesday to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary Committee chairman, and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the committee's top Republican, urging them to fully question Kagan to make sure she supports abortion rights, in light of her backing as a Clinton aide for a ban on most late-term abortions.
Slaughter, the co-chair of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, called a 1997 memo Kagan co-wrote on the matter "troubling." The document urged Clinton to back a ban on all abortions of viable fetuses except when the physical health of the mother was at risk.
Kagan's responses to the Judiciary Committee questionnaire include documents that could shed light on her views and legal approach. But GOP senators want to know more about Kagan's service during the Clinton years.
Some 160,000 pages from her time as a domestic policy adviser and associate White House counsel are expected to be released in the coming weeks by the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock, Ark.
Without those documents, senators say they have few clues about what Kagan's judicial style would be, given her limited courtroom experience. Kagan, 50, stepped aside Monday from her job as solicitor general, in which she represented the Obama administration before the Supreme Court.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/t...12089.html