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."
thankfully az love kyl
They could filibuster this one and cause Odumbo to have to pull her name and submit SOMEONE a little more to the center of the Constitution. There IS an election in November and I believe that the results of November 2 will scare the batshit out of Odumbo and the other progressives on Capital Hill. That at least gives the conservatives a larger share of power now in the hands of Harry Palms Reid and company.
filibuster a USSC for 2 1/2 years?
Did you not read the first line?
Elena Kagan is the most radical Supreme Court nominee in history.
Leftwing radicals are destroying our country, in all three branches, as we type.
Do you agree with Senator Kyl that this does not represent "extreme circumstances"?
There is no way the republican party is gonna capture 9 seats get it?
yes
Kagan is less liberal than the USSC member she would be replacing
How do you know?
By that reasoning we should just give up. Lets not even attempt to do anything to stop this marxist juggernaut! Just do what Kyl says and let this sail through without so much as a whisper of descent. Lets all just recognize that we conservatives could NEVER win enough seats to SHAKE UP THE REMAINING SENATORS and make they know that their asses are on the line if they vote blatant socialists like Kagan!
Yup. Time to surrender. The line forms behind you and Kyle, right?
“Elena Kagan is the most radical Supreme Court nominee in history.”
How do you know this?
Kyl
As an AZ please show some respect
Thx
Nebraska who has given us Ben Nelson and the HC crap
If Kyl isn’t up for the job, then have him step down and be replaced by someone who has a bit more fortitude.
rather than concentrate your efforts on Jon Kyl
you might want to concentrate your efforts on your own elected officals from NY
thx
who do you think kyl is getting his direction from?
I'm very sad that Kyl is one of the best we have and the posters on this website are throwing him under the bus. Instead of bad mouthing him, how about coming up with an alternative candidate and proving their credentials. That would be a lot more productive.
Personally I think this site is being invaded with enemies who want to elect Democrats by splitting the conservative/Republicans.
Finally.
But like I said earlier, presidential elections matter.
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