U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan received a 13 -6 approval vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. The vote was mainly along party lines, except for Senator Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who voted in favor of moving her nomination for an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. Her confirmation vote on the Senate floor is expected to occur during the first week in August.

  

In a letter released by the pro-life group Americans United for Life, Koop attacks Kagan for her work in the Clinton administration on legislation banning partial-birth abortion procedures.  Kagan manipulated a public statement by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, whose doctors had agreed with Koop's belief that "In my many decades of service as a medical doctor, I have never known of a case where partial-birth abortion was necessary." 

 

But after Kagan represented the Clinton Administration by writing a note that said their planned statement against infanticide "of course, would be a disaster," the ACOG changed their public statement to support infanticide and killing of partially-born children.  

 

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) announced he would vote against Kagan’s confirmation because of this issue, citing what he called Kagan's role promoting "the Clinton administration’s extreme position on abortion."  But Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has announced the Judiciary Committee will likely vote Tuesday on whether to forward Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan to the full Senate. Sessions told Human Events that "a Filibuster is not off the table" for Kagan, and is theoretically possible, if "extraordinary circumstances" are deemed warranted.  At least one Republican must vote to allow Kagan out of committee, according to Judiciary rules, even if all 7 Republicans of the 19 Judiciary Senators vote against her. 

 

Associated Press is reporting that Senator John McCain (R-AZ) plans to vote against confirming Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.  The Arizona senator's decision makes him the latest [of at least 13] in the GOP to publicly oppose President Barack Obama's nominee to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.  McCain says Kagan is unlikely to exercise judicial restraint, based on her decision as dean of Harvard Law School to bar military recruiters from the campus career services office because of the ban on openly gay soldiers. 

 

Democrats have enough votes to confirm Kagan, but they may not have enough to overcome a filibuster.  So far, none of the 41 Republican has announced plans to vote for Kagan.   

 

Ms. Kagan is a liberal activist and political operative with no experience as judge and a Supreme Court nominee ought to have significant practical experience as a lawyer or a judge, according to public-interest group Judicial Watch.

 

Kagan's biography includes work for the campaigns of ardent liberals Elizabeth Holtzman (a radical feminist in New York) and Michael Dukakis. She practiced law a total of 3 years, one of them for the Clinton White House. She also clerked for the late Thurgood Marshall, one of the most liberal Supreme Court members in recent history.

The rest of her career was spent working as a domestic policy aide in the Clinton White House and in academia, where she became the first female dean of Harvard Law School.

"[T]he fact that she continued to work in the Clinton White House after it became clear that President Clinton lied under oath raises questions about her ethical judgment. I know that it is not politically correct here in Washington to remind folks that Bill Clinton abused his office and lied under oath, but Judicial Watch believes that lawyers like Kagan who happily worked for him despite his misconduct in office need to be held to account as to why they continued to work for the impeached Clinton despite his contempt for the rule of law," said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton.

Many conservatives point to her decision to throw military recruiters off the campus of Harvard Law School during a time of war as showing she is far to the left of mainstream America. In kicking out the military, Kagan was in violation of the law known as the Solomon Amendment. And she only let recruiters back on her campus when the Department of Defense told her school it would withhold federal funds otherwise.

Kagan sought to have the Solomon Amendment overturned, but the Supreme Court knocked her effort down 8-0. Not even leftists on the Court, including Justice Stevens (who Kagan is seeking to replace), agreed with her radical effort to force the federal government to fund colleges who ban military recruiters from campus.

According to Fitton, it is a sight to see the Obama crowd spin Kagan’s ban on military recruiters because the military followed “the don’t ask, don’t tell” law passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton as “pro-military.” Talk about out-of-touch!