Obama Nominates Solicitor General Kagan to Supreme Court

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – President Barack Obama nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court Monday to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

Kagan, 50, would become the third woman on the court during a career that has included being dean of Harvard Law School and the federal government’s top lawyer.

She distinguished herself as solicitor general by litigating cases against big organizations that often were accused of trampling the interests of private citizens.

Although she has served as a staff member in all three branches of the federal government, she never has held a job as a judge – a fact that is likely to be closely scrutinized during Senate confirmation hearings, according to political analysts.

With her work in Republican and Democratic administrations, Kagan’s appointment is considered politically safe in a mid-term election year when Democrats are trying to shore up eroding popular support.

She described herself as “honored and humbled by this nomination.”

“I thank you, Mr. President, for this honor of a lifetime,” she said during a televised acceptance speech.

Obama said he was nominating her because of “her fair-mindedness and skill as a consensus-maker.”

He also said she would carry on retiring Justice Stevens’ record of “excellence, independence, integrity and passion for the law.”

In an apparent reference to cases Kagan litigated against big organizations, Obama said, “In a democracy, powerful voices should not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens.”

She took on lobbyists unsuccessfully in the landmark case of Citizens United v. Federal Election.

The Supreme Court ruled this year in the case that First Amendment free speech protects the right of corporations to fund political broadcasts and make other contributions to election campaigns.

The ruling drew the anger of Obama and members of Congress, who threatened to enact new legislation to override the Supreme Court.

As a White House lawyer and policy aide, Kagan played a lead role in developing legislation to prevent tobacco companies from targeting children with deceptive advertising and addictive products.

She has served as Obama’s solicitor general for the past year. Before that, she was dean of Harvard Law School.

She worked as a law clerk for now-deceased Justice Thurgood Marshall, who nicknamed her “Shorty.” She worked for two years in a Washington, D.C., law firm before taking a job as a law school professor and, later, government lawyer.

Despite her record that Obama described as a “superb lawyer,” Kagan has no experience as a judge. She was passed over by the Senate for a judicial nomination that went to John Roberts, now the Supreme Court’s chief justice.

Her lack of judicial experience already is giving ammunition to skeptics.

M. Edward Whelan III, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, wrote on the Web site of the conservative magazine National Review that “Kagan may well have less experience relevant to the work of being a justice than any entering justice in decades.”

Liberals are suspicious of her defense of a Bush administration policy that says Afghan detainees have no right to trials and can be held indefinitely. She also raised concern among liberals for her statement that she is not “morally opposed” to capital punishment.

Conservatives have criticized her for briefly barring military recruiters from a Harvard University facility after she said the military’s ban on openly gay men and women violated the school’s anti-discrimination policy.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hinted that her nomination hearing could be tough.

“She has been nominated for a lifetime appointment on the nation’s highest court, and we will carefully review her brief litigation experience, as well as her judgment and her career in academia, both as a professor and as an administrator,” McConnell said in a statement.

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