WASHINGTON – US president Barack Obama’s supreme court nominee Elena Kagan yesterday defended her decision to limit military recruiting at Harvard and rejected Republican charges she would be a liberal judicial activist.
Under questioning from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms Kagan calmly brushed off complaints she was more interested in politics than legal precedent and promised her rulings would be based solely on the law.
“My politics would be, must be, have to be completely separate from my judging,” Ms Kagan said on the second day of her confirmation hearing. “The question is always what the law says.”
Senator Jeff Sessions, the panel’s senior Republican, pressed Ms Kagan on whether she would follow President Obama’s political agenda and whether she was a “liberal progressive”.
“I honestly don’t know what that means,” Ms Kagan said. “This isn’t a job, I think, where somebody should come in with a particular substantive agenda and try to shape what they do to meet that agenda.”
Ms Kagan (50) has sparked little controversy compared to other supreme court nominees and appears headed to relatively easy confirmation.
Ms Kagan, who is Mr Obama’s solicitor general and a former aide in the Clinton administration, refused to take the bait when Republican Jon Kyl asked if she agreed with complaints the court had favoured corporations in recent rulings. “I would not want to characterize the current court in any way – I hope one day to join it,” she said.
“And they said you weren’t political,” Mr Kyl responded to laughter from Ms Kagan and the crowd.
Ms Kagan, a former dean of the Harvard law school, defended her decisions limiting access to military recruiters under university anti-discrimination rules because of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays, which she called unjust. While dean of the school, she reinstated Harvard’s policy preventing military recruiters from using its career office, but allowed them access through student groups.
If she wins Senate confirmation to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, she will be the first new member of the high court in four decades who has never been a judge. She also would be the current court’s youngest member and its third woman.
Ms Kagan was asked several times about a book review she wrote that criticised high court confirmation hearings as a charade because nominees rarely divulged their real views on key cases. She has adjusted her view now that she is on the other side, she replied.
Under questioning from Democratic chairman Patrick Leahy, she said the court’s decision on Monday extending gun rights to every city and state was “settled law”. On abortion, she said the court had repeatedly held that a woman’s life and health “must be protected”. Ms Kagan also said she supported televising court hearings, and promised to recuse herself from any case where she was the counsel of record as solicitor general. She said there were about 10 cases in that category on next year’s court docket. – (Reuters)