bumper sticker
Posted on 05/16/2010 2:41:24 PM PDT by LouAvul
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is unlikely to face a Republican filibuster, the Senate's second-ranking Republican said Sunday.
"The filibuster should be relegated to extreme circumstances, and I don't think Elena Kagan represents that," Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told CBS’s "Face the Nation."
Kyl voted to confirm Kagan to be solicitor general, the top lawyer who argues the administration's cases before the Supreme Court. But Kagan shouldn't be count on his vote again, he said.
"No," he said. "I explained at the time that my vote for the temporary position as the government's top lawyer in the Justice Department did not suggest how I would vote were she to be nominated for a lifetime appointment to a court such as the Supreme Court."
Administration efforts to keep Kagan's confirmation process humming along with little drama continue. Over the weekend, the White House sent a letter to the National Archives, urging the release of 160,000 pages of documents from Kagan's tenure in the Clinton White House. And this week she will head back to Capitol Hill for meetings to shore up additional support.
Judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) predicted Kagan's confirmation to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens will be "done this summer” ahead of the court's new term. Leahy said he'll be sitting down with ranking Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) this week.
"We'll work out a time," he said on ABC's "This Week."
Republicans have meanwhile stepped up their criticism in the run-up to the expected summer hearing, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tried a new line of attack Sunday, addressing Kagan's role in the Citizens United Case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment could not limit corporate funding in campaigns.
"Solicitor Kagan's office, in the initial hearing, argued that it'd be okay to ban books," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "And then when there was a re-hearing, Solicitor Kagan herself, in her first Supreme Court argument, suggested that it might be okay to ban pamphlets. I think that's very troubling."
On the Sunday shows, GOP senators again focused on Kagan's role in barring military recruiters from Harvard Law School. In 2003, Kagan, the law school’s dean, decided that military officials could not use the campus' main recruitment office because the military's "don't ask, don't tell" stance violated the school’s anti-discrimination policy.
Sessions proclaimed that it was "no little bitty matter," and said that Kagan broke the law.
“She disallowed them from the normal recruitment process on campus,” he told Jake Tapper on “This Week.” “She went out of her way to do so. She was a national leader in that, and she violated the law of the United States at various points in the process.”
McConnell, who did not repeat the claim that Kagan had broken the law, did say "the committee ought to look into it," since the "record has yet to be developed."
And while Kyl declined to weigh in on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's claim that Kagan is "anti-military," he said the controversy will "play a part in the hearings."
"In my view, it was inappropriate for her to describe it as a discriminatory policy of the military," he said. "She did not deny entry on to the campus of the president, President Clinton, or the members of the Congress who had adopted the law."
The White House has stressed that Kagan has had great relationships with veterans and with the military. And Leahy pushed back on “This Week,” saying it was "sound and fury signifying nothing."
"If somebody wants to go in the military, they usually find a recruiter," he said. "I mean, I don't think there was a recruiting station on the campus when my youngest son went and joined the Marine Corps. He wanted to join the Marine Corps. He had no trouble finding a recruiter. And I think in this case, the recruitment went on at Harvard all the way through. This really is trying to make up something out of whole cloth."
Its Nelson’s vote in Florida I worry about
Kyl is getting direction from the US Senate republican leadership
How much harm can 41 votes really do?
So the Republicans are gonna filibuster her confirmation to the USSC until when? the mid terms? we will get 60 votes then? no one is predicting that
she is less liberal than the USSC member she is replacing
Yep , living the dream of high taxes, low wages, highly arrogant residents, and stuck like $hit to an indian blanket!
So a CA resident what do you want?
Any GOPer who votes for Kagan “is” the problem.
President elections bring consequences.
Most posters in this form hate McCain.
>> It is too late, the other side has won it for good.
Nonsense.
Does the term “gang of 14” mean anything to you? McAmnesty was willing to and worked AGAINST Bush and his agenda to gain favor with the media and of his own personal animosity in his loss to Bush in 2000. McAmnesty voted against the HC bill because he KNEW he would be toast in this years race.
It has nothing to do with this nomination of the USSC
Whatever happened to the idea that the SCOTUS and all judges, really, must be as neutral as possible, and the very finest legal minds? Who can have any respect for the “rule of law” when it is determined by twisted children whose agenda requires destroying our freedom so that they can continue to live in “Neverland?”
Don’t lecture me about Tom Harkin. The Republican invertebrates have let him off the hook time after time after time for decades now. They won’t fight.
But he’s not up this year anyhow. Chuck “TARP” Grassley is though.
It’s a darned shame, but unfortunately ol’ Chuck went native quite some time back.
It’s way past time for him to go back to the farm and enjoy a nice retirement.
They sure do. Maybe the GOP should think about nominating someone who represents their platform instead of the Democrats'.
McCain is way far away from Keyes though isn’t he?
McCain is a Judas.
and just how long are they supposed to block it? 2 1/2 years into the next Presidential election?
you mean like alan keyes?
No. Like John Judas McCain.
i doubt mccain would have nominated her
Kyl, you give weasels a bad name.
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