Obama picks Kagan as next US Supreme Court justice

[Truckerman79]

Originally Posted by irishfan

No matter who is put up as a nominee for a political position you will always have someone who says they are to conservative or to liberal for their views. I will do some research on her but it would not surprise me at all if she is more moderate than truly liberal. Obama knows he is losing all of his moderate to conservative voters so he will throw the moderates a bone here to show that he is not a "socialist."

There is a difference between the liberal and conservative political views and liberal and conservative judicial philosophy.

The scary thing about this person is that she has no record of judicial experience to judge her by. She has no legal writings to review. I have a hunch that a person who was a dean at Harvard and a political appointee is going to have a strong urge to legislate from the bench. Although there is no requirement that a SCOTUS appointee even have a law degree, we should hold them to a higher standard if they are going to be appointed to the highest court in the land.

[Expat]

From what I have read, she has written that the Senate has the duty to ask very detailed and direct questions and insist that the nominee answers those questions. Let's see how long that lasts.

[mrjarrell]

Radley Balko has done some legwork and finds her to be a supporter of big government and a fan of presidential power. Not a recipe for a good judge. Add in her inexperience and desire for social change and you have the capacity for a really bad pick here.

via The Agitator

The quote is from William F. West, a professor of federal administration at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M, commenting to the Boston Globe on Obama Supreme Court nominee Elana Kagan shortly after she was nominated to be solicitor general last year. The New York Times’ Charlie Savage explains how a Kagan nomination could shift the balance of the court on key civil liberties vs. war on terrorism issues.
But Kagan’s pro-government position extends to criminal justice issues, too. In her current position, Kagan and her subordinates have filed amicus briefs and argued the pro-prosecution, pro-law enforcement position in every criminal justice-related case to come before the Supreme Court since Obama took office. In cases where the constitutionality of a federal law was in question, you could argue that because of her position, Kagan was obligated to defend the law whether she agreed with it or not. But her office could at the very least have merely remained silent on cases like Alvarez v. Smith (a challenge to the Illinois asset forfeiture law, which is much more government-friendly than the federal law), or Alaska, District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne (arguing that the states should grant post-conviction DNA testing if doing so could show factual innocence).
Kagan’s office also argued against expanding the rights of the accused and wrongly persecuted when a specific federal law wasn’t in question, such as when she argued that prosecutors who manufacture evidence that leads to the conviction of an innocent person should not be subject to lawsuits (Pottawatomie vs. McGhee), and that the Constitution’s Confrontation Clause doesn’t protect the right to cross examine forensic experts (Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts). Most recently in U.S. v. Stevens, her office argued in favor of a federal law banning the sale of videos depicting animal cruelty, taking a broadly censorious position that First Amendment rights be balanced with “societal costs.”
That position was rebuked as “preposterous” in an 8-1 opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts. Which makes Kagan more pro-censorship than Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, or Thomas. (She also argued the pro-censorship position in Citizens United, but while no less troubling, that’s less surprising.)

More at the source. Well worth the read if you want to know more about your next supreme court justice.

[MadBomber]

This from her confirmation as Solicitor General:

"Regarding gun laws, Kagan says she has “no reason to believe that the court’s analysis was faulty” in the 2008 Supreme Court case striking down the District of Columbia’s strict gun-control laws. And she added that her office would likely “continue to defend” against constitutional challenges on various federal regulations concerning firearms."

More at the source:

Kagan's Supreme Court preview? - Manu Raju - POLITICO.com

[Joe Williams]

Originally Posted by llamant

1/3 of the comments in this thread are concerning her looks. There is surely a better standard for judicial review.

Fair enough.

She has no experience as a judge.
She has no real legal experience at all.
She's made comments that highlight her intent to legislate from the bench, a betrayal of the Constitution.
And she's really frigging ugly.

[jedi]

Originally Posted by MadBomber

This from her confirmation as Solicitor General:

"Regarding gun laws, Kagan says she has “no reason to believe that the court’s analysis was faulty” in the 2008 Supreme Court case striking down the District of Columbia’s strict gun-control laws. And she added that her office would likely “continue to defend” against constitutional challenges on various federal regulations concerning firearms."

More at the source:

Kagan's Supreme Court preview? - Manu Raju - POLITICO.com

So this good or bad?

[Expat]

Originally Posted by jediagh

So this good or bad?

It should be good unless she is being intellectually dishonest. If I am not a strict constructionist, I can say I agree with their reasoning on a Constitutional basis but want to overturn that decision because of other reasons. Never take what a liberal lawyer says at face value. They play semantic games on a daily basis.

[Bigum1969]

Originally Posted by Joe Williams

Fair enough.

She has no experience as a judge.
She has no real legal experience at all.
She's made comments that highlight her intent to legislate from the bench, a betrayal of the Constitution.
And she's really frigging ugly.

[MadBomber]

Originally Posted by jediagh

So this good or bad?

Originally Posted by Expat

It should be good unless she is being intellectually dishonest. If I am not a strict constructionist, I can say I agree with their reasoning on a Constitutional basis but want to overturn that decision because of other reasons. Never take what a liberal lawyer says at face value. They play semantic games on a daily basis.

I've scoured the interwebs for the last couple of hours and this was as close to a definitive statement of her opinion on RKBA as I could find. So...I guess for now it's kind of ..bleh..neither good nor bad.

[Fletch]

Originally Posted by Joe Williams

And she's really frigging ugly.

I'm starting to get the idea that you guys are planning a trip to Kohl's to pick out curtains with Scalia.