The Senate today commenced debate on the nomination of Elena Kagan to serve a lifetime appointment on the U.S. Supreme Court. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) opened the proceedings with a strong statement of how conservatives should assess nominees to the High Court.
Senator Sessions started with a discussion of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and Elena Kagan’s efforts to bar the military from recruiting on campus in her role as Dean of the Harvard Law School.
The United States military did not have a policy called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” That was a law passed by the United States Congress and signed by President Clinton and it was the law of the land and it was not their choice. They followed, saluted, and did their duty. Yet, Ms. Kagan barred them from the campus of Harvard. And on four different occasions this Congress passed laws to try to ensure that our military men and women at a time of two wars were not discriminated against on college campuses in this country.
Sessions concluded that Kagan “was not justified.” Sessions argued that “it was wrong” for Kagan to bar the military from recruiting on campus. Sessions concluded this argument by saying that Kagan “punished the men and women who were preparing to serve and defend our country and Harvard’s freedom to carry on whatever these silly activities they want to carry on.”
Kagan has tried to dodge responsibility for her actions in this controversy, but as Rob Bluey reports for The Foundry:
Kagan inherited a policy from former Dean Robert Clark that gave military recruiters full, unfettered access to campus. Clark reversed Harvard’s long-standing policy opposing military recruiters on July 29, 2002, because the U.S. Air Force threatened the university’s federal funding two months earlier. It’s spelled out in detail in a Harvard news release.
Bluey discussed a myth that a 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals case provided Kagan with a legal explanation on why she was allowed to bar the military from the campus of the Harvard Law School.
The court’s decision didn’t even apply to Massachusetts, which is located in the 1st U.S. Circuit. This is the same mistake Biden made in his interpretation of events. In other words, Kagan was under no legal requirement to reinstate Harvard’s ban on military recruiters. She made the decision on her own.
Senator Sessions then discussed numerous issues then focused on Kagan’s record on the 2nd Amendment. Sessions argued:
“By one vote, the Supreme Court is keeping the right to bear arms. If one vote is switched, the Supreme Court could rule 5-4 that any city in any state in America could ban completely the right to keep and bear arms in our country, violating what I would say the plain words of the Constitution.”
Elena Kagan most likely would vote to overturn every American’s individual right to “keep and bear Arms.” Kagan, as a law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, wrote that she was personally “not sympathetic” to the claim of a petitioner that his constitutionally protected 2nd Amendment rights were violated. Kagan was a counsel during the Presidency of Bill Clinton and was active in the Clinton’s gun control agenda. Kagan argued during the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings that she “never had an occasion to look at” the history of the 2nd Amendment.
Senator Sessions made a strong opening argument for the proposition that President Obama’s Solicitor General, Elena Kagan, would prove to be a liberal activist on the High Court.
