The New York Times‘ Room for Debate blog has items from Alan Dershowitz, Dick Thornburgh, Jamal Greene, Kathleen Sullivan, Robert Reich, Ed Whelan, and me. Here’s my modest contribution: If Elena Kagan is confirmed, Justice John Paul Stevens’ seat will remain in pretty solidly liberal hands for the next 40 years, if Ms. Kagan remains […]
Archive | Kagan Nomination
Elena Kagan as Scholar
As scholar, Elena Kagan worked in two main fields, First Amendment law and (more or less) administrative law. Since the first of those fields is one in which I also work, I decided to reread those articles, and — since some people have raised questions about Kagan’s qualities as a scholar — look more broadly […]
Isn’t This a Bit Much?
The president went to Harvard, and barely defeated a primary opponent who went to Yale. His predecessor went to Yale and Harvard, and defeated opponents who went to Yale and Harvard, and Harvard, respectively. The previous two presidents also went to Yale, with Bush I defeating another Harvard grad for the presidency. And once Elena […]
Kagan’s Scholarship
By Jonathan H. Adler on May 10, 2010 8:31 am in Judicial Nominations, Kagan Nomination, Supreme Court
At Balkinization, Marvin Ammori and Mark Tushnet review some of Elena Kagan’s scholarship (and seem more impressed than Paul Campos and Paul Mirengoff). Ammori explores some of her First Amendment scholarship and wonders whether she is sympathetic to “corporate speech rights,” such as those embraced by the Supreme Court in Citizens United. Brian Leiter also […]
The Road to the Supreme Court Runs Through a Stalled Senate Confirmation:
Obviously I’m exaggerating. But it does seem peculiar that Kagan, like John Roberts, was nominated by a prior President but never voted on in the Senate. Is it possible that this is more than a coincidence? Probably not. But here’s a theory for perhaps why being a nominated but stalled nominee for the circuit court […]
Preliminary Reflections on the Kagan Nomination
I don’t have a lot to say about Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan that can’t be said better by others. Unlike now-Justice Sotomayor, she does not have an extensive record on issues that are within my core areas of expertise. I do, however, want to highlight one important advantage Kagan has over the realistic alternatives: […]
Elena Kagan: “I LOVE the Federalist Society! I LOVE the Federalist Society!”
By Jim Lindgren on May 10, 2010 12:10 am in American Constitution Society, Federalist Society, Kagan Nomination, Supreme Court
Charles Fried tells part of the story about Elena Kagan’s appearance at a Federalist Society dinner at Harvard a few years ago: In February 2005 the student branch of the Federalist Society (a group founded in the early ’80s to explore and promote conservative and libertarian perspectives on the law) held its national jamboree at […]
Justice Kagan I Presume?
By Jonathan H. Adler on May 9, 2010 10:25 pm in Judicial Nominations, Kagan Nomination, Supreme Court
SCOTUSBlog’s Tom Goldstein says the pick is coming tomorrow, and David Lat has reasons to think it’s Kagan (as Politico reported Friday). If Kagan is the pick, there will be no filibuster and she will be confirmed — perhaps even with 65 votes as Goldstein predicts — but there could be some bumps on the […]
Someone Like Me
In my experience, when someone makes an argument that a President should select a Supreme Court nominee with a particular experience or worldview, there is a very highly likelihood that the person making the recommendation has that exact experience or worldview. Yesterday’s New York Times op-ed page makes the point nicely. (It’s not true for […]