The Kagan Confirmation: Day Two Summary

Brian Walsh / June 29, 2010

Day two of the Elena Kagan confirmation hearings saw a little less posturing than yesterday’s opening salvos by Senators bent on diverting attention from Kagan’s record by excoriating the current Supreme Court and falsely characterizing it as a bunch of “conservative activists.” Unfortunately, there was the same lack of meaningful information regarding Kagan’s qualifications to be given a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Kagan dodged probing questions on a wide range of important legal issues – the value of precedent, the role of the Court, the identification of fundamental rights, and the interpretation of key constitutional provisions.

From the outset, Kagan ran away from every attempt to characterize her political and philosophical views. Senators Sessions (R-AL), Hatch (R-UT), Kyl (R-AZ), Grassley (R-IA), and Graham (R-SC) pressed Kagan on the nature of her political ideology and approach to legal analysis. She generally refused to admit any specific views and even went so far as to claim that she did not know what the term “progressive” meant. (more…)