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Vote on Kagan Delayed by a Week; Will the NRA Get Involved?

By Ashby Jones

kaganThe Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Elena Kagan was originally slated to take place on Tuesday, but Republicans on the committee asked to delay the vote for a week. So the new date appears to be July 20. And what will Republican members of the committee do with that extra week? After all, it appears that the Democrats will have enough votes to push Kagan through now -- and that's likely to be the case next week. According to this piece by Politico's Josh Gerstein, Republicans will use the time partly to look into the issue of whether Kagan will recuse herself from any court cases challenging the health care reform legislation passed earlier this year if she became a justice. But also on the GOP agenda: peel away a few votes from Democratic senators. According to Gerstein, despite that Kagan's confirmation looks probable, the GOP is trying to weaken the Obama administration by keeping her total vote down. And "the White House is pushing back, trying to boost the likely margin of victory." Writes Gerstein: That means red-state Democratic senators who are up for reelection in the near future, such as Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, are the focus of anti-Kagan lobbying. Republicans hope to pick off others who represent conservative-leaning states, including Jon Tester of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska and Jim Webb of Virginia. Gerstein also reports that "bigger guns" could soon be entering the fight on a more granular, "senator-by-senator" basis. The bigger guns belong to the National Rifle Association. A spokesman for the National Rifle Association told Politico on Tuesday that the group is considering expanding its national anti-Kagan Web-based video campaign by adding TV ads aimed at specific fence-sitting lawmakers. "We're looking at targeted advertising as well," NRA official Chris Cox said. "I can tell you we are communicating our strong opposition to Republicans and Democrats. ... We think [Kagan] is deserving of a filibuster."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 14, 2010 (boomark / email).