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."
A homosexual socialist anti American supreme court justice appointed by a foreign born socialist muslim falsely occupying the office of president and you don't think it represents an extreme circumstance? You're an idiot.
The Democrats play hardball while the Repubs play T-ball.
And THESE jerk repukes ASK WHY the Tea Party is upset???
Get lost Kyle, you dumb-ass!
I believe that Senator Kyl is dead wrong on this one.
We all need to call his offices and let him know beyond any doubt that Kagan must NOT be confirmed.
I believe he is up for re-election in 2012.
Time to start planning on taking out the trash.
Is Kyl up for reelection this year?
Jeez they are useless.
All the RINOS will turn on us and help the Crats.
Looks like Arizona needs 2 new Senators.
If A dyed in the wool avowed socialist doesn’t trigger a filibuster, then Our once great nation is truly lost.
” The Democrats play hardball while the Repubs play T-ball. “
Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser...
Collegiality and good manners has become a one-sided game - and the Pubbies had better get with the program and start playing in the real world....
As if I wasn't disgusted enough with the unprincipled invertebrates that pass for Republican Senators already. Kagan is the most virulently Leftwing pick for the Supreme Court in history, by far. If that isn't "extreme circumstances" I don't know what would be. These people are destroying our country.
I believe it is in 2012.
These incumbents are simply not paying attention.
Stop Obama at every single thing...
Retards...
Thanks. I know what to do.
FU Kyl. FU too Kagan.
It's a breach of the oath of office.
Someone should ask one of these bozos (senators) in a live news conference (do they even give these anymore?) the following: “What would it take for you to NOT endorse one of Obama’s picks for SC?”
It’s interesting that Obama’s choices for the Supreme Court have thin paper trails.
She pushes the old Soviet policy of, “Say anything you like, just don’t say anything you don’t like” as a replacement for the First Amendment and that’s not “extreme”? Earth to Jon! Try to focus, Jon!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.