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Was Lindsey Graham?s vote for Kagan constitutionally required?

By Alliance Alert

Michael C. Dorf writing at FindLaw: "Senator Graham's view can be summarized as follows: The role of the Senate is to examine a nominee's professional qualifications, character, and whether her substantive views fall within the broad mainstream of legal thought. And indeed, many Senators have, over the years, taken exactly that position. But Graham went further, suggesting that Senators are constitutionally-forbidden from voting against a nominee based on ideological disagreement with the nominee. As I shall explain in this column, however, this suggestion is false: The Constitution does not clearly circumscribe the Senate's role. Moreover, even if all of the Senators had accepted Graham's views about their proper role, increased party polarization would have made the 'mainstream' requirement difficult to satisfy in practice."

Full post as published by Constitutionally Correct on July 26, 2010 (boomark / email).