With Elena Kagan being grilled and finally having to defend her past, there is a lot of information out there to take in. Here is some of what is being discussed:
Human Events | Kagan’s Answer on Roe Reveals Her Pro-Abortion Ideology
Responding to Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) this morning, Kagan confirmed her belief that “Roe (v. Wade) and Doe (v. Bolton) require” that any state “regulation” of abortion protect the “health” of women seeking abortion. Kagan isolated the Supreme Court’s holding in the 2007 case, Gonzales v. Carhart—which upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban of 2003 without a “health” exception—by stating that the Gonzales decision only pertained to a particular abortion procedure.
CSMonitor | At hearings, Elena Kagan defends approach to military recruiting
In her testimony, Kagan suggested that her policy shift did not impose a hardship on military recruiters.
She said that she felt an obligation to reverse the military-recruiting policy as a means to uphold the school’s antidiscrimination stance and protect gay and lesbian students.
“Isn’t it a fact,” Sessions asked, “that you were acting in violation of Harvard’s agreement [with the Pentagon on military recruiting] and the law when you reversed the policy?”
Kagan disagreed. “We were never out of compliance,” she said. “Nobody ever suggested that Harvard should be sanctioned in any way.”
Fox News | Sen. Al Franken Naps, Draws Cartoons During Kagan Hearings
He’s good enough, he’s smart enough, but doggone it — he just can’t keep his eyes open for Senate confirmation hearings.
Al Franken, the onetime comedian and current Democratic senator from Minnesota, used his position on the vaunted Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to doodle a lifelike bust of Sen. Jeff Sessions, the committee’s ranking Republican, as Sessions raked Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan over the coals.
But it wasn’t all fun and games for the former “Saturday Night Live” star — Franken also found time to get in a good nap during the first day of hearings Monday.
New York Times | Kagan Follows Precedent by Offering Few Opinions
Ms. Kagan’s responses, during a long and sometimes tense day of parrying with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, were similar to those of Supreme Court nominees past. But unlike her predecessors, Ms. Kagan wrote a 1995 article calling for judicial nominees to be more forthcoming. On Tuesday, minutes into her testimony, she backpedaled, saying she now believed it would be inappropriate even to answer questions that might “provide some kind of hints” about her views on matters of legal controversy.
“I think that that was wrong,” she said. “I think that — in particular, that it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to talk about what I think about past cases — you know, to grade cases — because those cases themselves might again come before the court.”