The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts. - Edmund Burke
In 1995, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan wrote a 25-page Law Review paper criticizing Supreme Court nomination hearings since Robert Bork was defeated in 1986 for giving frank answers:
Now watch this exchange with Senator Jeff Sessions on whether Kagan is a “legal progessive”:
She doesn’t know what a legal progessive is? Unfortunately, Kagan isn’t sticking with her 1995 view on nomination hearings and is giving us another performance in evasiveness.
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The confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan consists of long speeches from senators and Kagan working hard on saying nothing.
But here is a rare moment of interest. Senator Coburn asks Kagan if it would be unconstitutional for the government to mandate that Americans have to eat “three vegetables and three fruits every day”. Incredibly, Kagan is unwilling to say that it is unconstitutional to “tell the people what we have to eat every day.”
For most of the rest of the hearing, we find ourselves in the strange position of sympathizing with failed humorist and Minnesota senator, Al Franken, who has trouble staying awake.
More interesting insights into our next Supreme Court Justice: Supreme Court Nominee Kagan: Its Fine if The Law Bans Books Because Government Won’t Really Enforce It
It is time to change the expectations for Supreme Court nomination hearings and demand that nominees who will be on the Court for the rest of their lives actually tell us about their judicial philosophy.
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The nomination hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan have started today. Expect endless speeches by senators, but don’t expect senators to ask the interesting questions George Will suggests.
Here is a revealing exchange on free speech and the government’s power to regulate it in which Solicitor General Kagan representing the Obama administration argued in front of the Supreme Court:
Kagan is comfortable defending laws that give government sweeping powers to regulate political speech and her only defense is “but the government has never used the law to ban books”. Asides from the fact that the distinctions she draws between different types of media are becoming increasingly blurred in the age of the internet, why would we want to give the government any power to restrict political speech? The First Amendment’s free speech clause was meant to categorically protect political speech.
Kagan lost the argument in the Citizens United case. The Supreme Court ruled 5 – 4 against the government. Kagan will be replacing John Paul Stevens, one of the four who condoned government restrictions on free speech.
Kagan will most likely be confirmed. Senate Republicans are not united in blocking her confirmation. But the question remains: Why should we continue to condone putting people on the Supreme Court who do not support the basic rights guaranteed in the Constitution?
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Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan’s college thesis, “To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City 1900 – 1933,” has been posted at Red State.
Here is her conclusion to a 134 page history of the Socialist Party in New York in the early 20th century:
Through its own internal feuding, then, the SP exhausted itself forever and further reduced labor radicalism in New York to the position of marginality and insignificance from which it has never recovered. The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America. Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one’s fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet if the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemy. In unity lies their only hope.
Although it is unlikely that her nomination will be defeated, it is clear that Elena Kagan is outside the American mainstream. She is an advocate for radical political ideas that are in direct conflict with the US Constitution. If she is confirmed, she will attempt to shred the Constitution for the next 30 to 40 years.
Republicans and any Democrat senators who aren’t quite comfortable yet with being obedient socialists should oppose her nomination. Call your senators and let them know that you oppose the selection of a socialist radical to the United States Supreme Court.
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How does Elena Kagan really feel about guns? Read “Kagan Was ‘Not Sympathetic’ as Law Clerk to Gun-Rights Argument“
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