McConnell Will Vote No on Kagan

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell will vote no on the confirmation of Elena Kagan to Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Here's McConnell's statement:"

In her testimony this week, Ms. Kagan acknowledged that it is ‘difficult to take off the advocate’s hat and put on the judge’s hat.’ That difficulty is particularly acute for someone like Ms. Kagan, who has spent so much of her adult life practicing the art of political advocacy rather than practicing law.

Unfortunately, Ms. Kagan failed to explain how she could overcome that difficulty, falling well short, in fact, of meeting her own standard for providing the Senate helpful testimony. She was far from forthcoming in discussing her own views on basic principles of American constitutional law. For example, she refused to repudiate her alarming position in the Supreme Court that the federal government can ban core political speech if it dislikes the speaker, including speech with a long and venerable history in our country, like political pamphlets.

I do not have confidence that if she were confirmed to a lifetime position on the Supreme Court she would suddenly constrain the ardent political advocacy that has marked much of her adult life. The American people expect a justice who will impartially apply the law, not one who will be a rubberstamp for the Obama administration or any other administration. For these reasons, I will oppose Ms. Kagan’s confirmation.

Kagan Waffles

It's day two of Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings, and she appears to be engaging in a bit of historical revision about her role in the Clinton administration.

Previously, Kagan described her role as a "policy adviser to Clinton." In 2007, Kagan said that "[d]uring most of the time I spent in the White House, I did not serve as an attorney; I was instead a policy adviser . . . . It was part of my job not to give legal advice but to choose when and how to ask for it."

In her testimony to the Judiciary Committee today, however, Kagan said "I tried my hardest when I was in the - when I worked in the Clinton administration, including as a lawyer, to provide good legal advice to the president."

The Clinton Library has released Kagan emails that show her advice included which campaign finance "reform" proposals would hurt Republicans and thereby benefit Democrats: "Soft $ ban - affects Repubs, not Dems!"

In essence, Kagan's legal advice was intertwined with her political advice. That raises the issue of whether Kagan can vote as a Supreme Court justice without weighing the political ramifications of the cases's outcome. Simply put, can this former political operative be neutral?

Dems Try to Railroad Sotomayor Hearings

The networks reported last night that the the Senate judiciary hearings on the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor are scheduled to start July 13. But what ABC, at least, neglected to note is that Democrats set the date without even the courtesy of running the schedule by their Republican counterparts. (Classy!)

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell noted that the scheduling move diminishes bipartisan collegiality and threatens the confirmation process itself, by making the hearings less informative: According to McConnell, Democrats'

decision to rush Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing is puzzling. It risks resulting in a less-informed hearing, and it breaks with years of tradition in which bipartisan agreements were reached and honored over the scheduling of hearings for Supreme Court nominees. And it damages the cordiality and good will the Senate relies on to do its business. These kinds of partisan maneuvers have always come with consequences.”

McConnell also contrasted the Democrats' rush to confirm Sotomayor with the Democrats' careful, studied, meticulous review of the records of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.

Justice Sotomayor has been prolific: Yet Democrats propose to allow senators only 48 days to review Judge Sotomayor’s 3,625 cases. At that pace, Senators would need to analyze 76 Sotomayor cases per day. Note that Democrats, in contrast, took the leisurely pace of reviewing just six cases per day for the Roberts hearings.

What is it about Sotomayor's record that Democrats are trying to hide? If she's this fabulous nominee of which they claim to be so proud, then why not use her confirmation hearings to showcase her "Latina wisdom" and her "empathy"? It could be a love-fest for identity politics; it's shocking that the Democrats wouldn't want to savor every minute -- rather than cutting it short.