Legal Commentary

No Answers From Kagan?

By Big Tent Democrat

When I had a spare moment today, I watched the Spain-Portugal World Cup game (Spain won 1-0.) So I watched none of the Kagan confirmation hearings. I just read this report on the hearings:

Under questioning by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, Ms. Kagan said she thought it would be inappropriate for her to talk about how she might rule on pending cases or cases “that might come before the court in the future” — or to answer questions that were “veiled” efforts to get at such issues. Moreover, she said, she also now believed that “it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to talk about past cases” by essentially grading Supreme Court precedents, because those issues, too, might someday come again before the court.

Some Republicans seemed willing to give Ms. Kagan a pass on her retreat from her 1995 standard about how open and specific nominees should be about their legal views. “I really don’t have any major disagreement with where she’s drawn the line,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said during a break.

I'll read the transcript to see, but if I were a Senator, I would not accept the position Kagan has taken. I would vote No on bringing the nomination to the floor until the nominee answered the questions. But it seems clear that I am in the minority on this point.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on June 29, 2010 (boomark / email).