President Obama Chooses Kagen For Supreme Court

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BREAKING NEWS

President Obama Chooses Kagan For Supreme Court
Describing Elena Kagan as an academic "whose passion for the law is anything but academic," President Barack Obama this morning said he will nominate Kagan, the first female solicitor general of the United States, to the U.S. Supreme Court.

White House: Kagan Decision Came Sunday
President Barack Obama made a round of phone calls beginning at 8 p.m. Sunday after deciding to nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, an administration official said today. The final decision to nominate Kagan came late enough that, throughout the weekend, the White House's confirmation team worked on plans to introduce any of multiple candidates, said the official.

Early Reaction to Kagan From the Senate
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) voted to confirm Elena Kagan as solicitor general, but the Senate's No. 2 Republican said today that he would not necessarily support her for the Supreme Court.

National Law Journal

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Type: Discussion • Score: 12 • Views: 7,491 • Replies: 65

Obama's Choice Vs The Republicans: Clash of The Titans

Release The Kagen

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@Miller,

It'll be interesting to see how everyone reacts to a nominee who hasn't been a judge before. I read that this was fairly common the court back in the 50's, but it's been a while.

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@rosborne979,

Interesting. I'm not terribly familiar with the history of the USSC's make-up.

A
R
T

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@failures art,

don't be sexist, not all women wear make-up

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@djjd62,

djjd62 wrote:

don't be sexist, not all women wear make-up

It's a wild bunch on the USSC.

A
T
The men even wear robes. (maybe they go commando?)

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The real rant is going to be around Harvard's attempt to ban military recruiters. All the chicken-hawks will claim grevious insult to flag and country and frame the vote as a patriotic choice between our men and women in the service and those ivy school elites. It will be interesting to see how Kagen handles it.

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@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

It'll be interesting to see how everyone reacts to a nominee who hasn't been a judge before. I read that this was fairly common the court back in the 50's, but it's been a while.

It was extremely common. Indeed, the current emphasis on previous judicial experience is a recent phenomenon. I believe the last justice without any prior experience on the bench was Lewis Powell, although a couple of guys on the court right now didn't have a lot of experience as judges. I think Clarence Thomas was on the DC Circuit Court just long enough to find the courthouse cafeteria, get the key to the judges' bathroom, and sexually harass all of his female subordinates, in order of height.

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@joefromchicago,

My first thought when I heard that she had no experience was that I thought it was a mistake picking someone with no experience. I was very surprised to learn that historically speaking, it was the norm.

What's the thought process behind picking a supreme court justice without any judicial experience? Is there an argument for that?

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H2O MAN wrote:

The 'woman' Obama has chosen is currently a solicitor general... Background on Elena Kagan

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@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

I read that this was fairly common the court back in the 50's, but it's been a while.

'Whites Only' was also fairly common back in the 50's

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As was "Ultra Far Right Wing Only" for most of this century.

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@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

As was "Ultra Far Right Wing Only" for most of this century.

And now we are faced with "Radical Liberal Supremacist Extremists".

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it certainly looks like we are seeing a trend towards nominating those with thin paper trails, presumably because getting anyone with established views through the dysfunctional Congress is difficult/impossible. At some point we are likely to get a nasty surprise, realizing only a year to two after they get there that they are not suited for the bench of the highest court in the land.

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@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

What's the thought process behind picking a supreme court justice without any judicial experience? Is there an argument for that?

Sure, there are some pretty good arguments. It broadens the perspective of the court to have some people who come from outside of the judicial fraternity. Usually, that involves getting someone who has a broader experience outside of the court system, although in Kagen's case she has been equally cloistered in legal academia, punctuated with service in the executive branch of the federal government. I'm not sure the addition of Kagan, therefore, will serve the purpose.

Frankly, it troubles me more that Kagen has served in the executive branch than that she hasn't served in the judicial branch. We're seeing a growing trend whereby presidents choose justices who, having served past presidents, are expected to be more sympathetic to executive claims in the future. Indeed, Kagan has received exactly this criticism. She's no Harriet Myers, to be sure, but time will tell whether she can stand up to presidential claims to power.

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@joefromchicago,

Quote:

Frankly, it troubles me more that Kagen has served in the executive branch than that she hasn't served in the judicial branch. We're seeing a growing trend whereby presidents choose justices who, having served past presidents, are expected to be more sympathetic to executive claims in the future. Indeed, Kagan has received exactly this criticism. She's no Harriet Myers, to be sure, but time will tell whether she can stand up to presidential claims to power.

Excellent point, which merits repeating.

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@hawkeye10,

HAving a judicial tire track doesnt provide anything anyway. Candidates will say whatever they must to pass the congressional review process and then they display themselves once they take their position. Both Roberts and Alito swore up and down how they didnt like an "Activist Court" and they felt that once itd been decided, itd been decided . SO far both Alito and Roberts have failed to honor the pledges they made in their own hearings.

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@farmerman,

my concern runs more towards the idea that if Presidents now feel that they must go with only people with a light paper trail then the vast majority of otherwise qualified candidates are eliminated from the get go. At this to racial and gender profiling the pool starts to get pretty small. In this selection word was that the top ten list had a token white guy, but Obama was never going to take him.

My overall complaint is that we have gotten too far away from choosing the best person for the job. America only works as a meritocracy, once we loose that we are dog ****. We pretty much already have.

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okay so i saw her picture, why are they spelling chaz bono as elena kagen?

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@djjd62,

you seem to be out of the loop, Bono had had herself surgically made into a man.

1 Reply

President Obama Chooses Kagen For Supreme Court

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