Posted on 05/16/2010 2:41:24 PM PDT by LouAvul
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is unlikely to face a Republican filibuster, the Senate's second-ranking Republican said Sunday.
"The filibuster should be relegated to extreme circumstances, and I don't think Elena Kagan represents that," Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told CBS’s "Face the Nation."
Kyl voted to confirm Kagan to be solicitor general, the top lawyer who argues the administration's cases before the Supreme Court. But Kagan shouldn't be count on his vote again, he said.
"No," he said. "I explained at the time that my vote for the temporary position as the government's top lawyer in the Justice Department did not suggest how I would vote were she to be nominated for a lifetime appointment to a court such as the Supreme Court."
Administration efforts to keep Kagan's confirmation process humming along with little drama continue. Over the weekend, the White House sent a letter to the National Archives, urging the release of 160,000 pages of documents from Kagan's tenure in the Clinton White House. And this week she will head back to Capitol Hill for meetings to shore up additional support.
Judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) predicted Kagan's confirmation to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens will be "done this summer” ahead of the court's new term. Leahy said he'll be sitting down with ranking Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) this week.
"We'll work out a time," he said on ABC's "This Week."
Republicans have meanwhile stepped up their criticism in the run-up to the expected summer hearing, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tried a new line of attack Sunday, addressing Kagan's role in the Citizens United Case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment could not limit corporate funding in campaigns.
"Solicitor Kagan's office, in the initial hearing, argued that it'd be okay to ban books," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "And then when there was a re-hearing, Solicitor Kagan herself, in her first Supreme Court argument, suggested that it might be okay to ban pamphlets. I think that's very troubling."
On the Sunday shows, GOP senators again focused on Kagan's role in barring military recruiters from Harvard Law School. In 2003, Kagan, the law school’s dean, decided that military officials could not use the campus' main recruitment office because the military's "don't ask, don't tell" stance violated the school’s anti-discrimination policy.
Sessions proclaimed that it was "no little bitty matter," and said that Kagan broke the law.
“She disallowed them from the normal recruitment process on campus,” he told Jake Tapper on “This Week.” “She went out of her way to do so. She was a national leader in that, and she violated the law of the United States at various points in the process.”
McConnell, who did not repeat the claim that Kagan had broken the law, did say "the committee ought to look into it," since the "record has yet to be developed."
And while Kyl declined to weigh in on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's claim that Kagan is "anti-military," he said the controversy will "play a part in the hearings."
"In my view, it was inappropriate for her to describe it as a discriminatory policy of the military," he said. "She did not deny entry on to the campus of the president, President Clinton, or the members of the Congress who had adopted the law."
The White House has stressed that Kagan has had great relationships with veterans and with the military. And Leahy pushed back on “This Week,” saying it was "sound and fury signifying nothing."
"If somebody wants to go in the military, they usually find a recruiter," he said. "I mean, I don't think there was a recruiting station on the campus when my youngest son went and joined the Marine Corps. He wanted to join the Marine Corps. He had no trouble finding a recruiter. And I think in this case, the recruitment went on at Harvard all the way through. This really is trying to make up something out of whole cloth."
There is not enough Viagra in the world to cure the Senate GOP’s E.D.
“I’m tired of seeing them surrender without a fight when our qualified nominees are totally destroyed by the democrat party. How long are we going to allow this to go on?”
It’s definitely time to turn up the heat on Republicans and let them know that we’re not going to put up with acting as if everything is a foregone conclusion.
heck if the Republicans don’t have any spine we might as well just give up and vote a straight democratic ticket for the mid terms
Look.....Bammy won because of ALL the CONSERVATIVES that STAYED HOME!! They are getting what they deserve!! There is NO PERFECT CANDIDATE...JESUS ISN”T RUNNING!
Who did you vote for??
Why the F&%K not????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kyl, you SUCK! Republicans SUCK. Period.
i guess bill nelson is superior to any us senator that is republican
i dare you to declare what state you are from
My vote in Florida went to that bozo Marinez and Marco Rubio will win that seat.
Who did you vote for for President?
i just don’t know what to make of this thread...
most who are critical are newbies and don’t declare what states they are from
No, Nelson is an asshole and I expect that from him. I do not expect that from someone who PORTRAYS himself to be a conservative, as Kyle does.
Its Kyl
oh and lets compare kyl to nelson and your other U S Senator who is retiring, which I like, and polls showing crist is leading as an independent
maybe you might want to expend your energy there instead of reading my posts and arguing your point
I actually voted for Sara Palin. The other part of HER ticket was irrelevant because McAmnesty would have done the same things as President For Life Barak Hussein Odumbo, only it would have taken longer.
You did the right thing, so you can complain all you want.....my complaint was with the CONSERVATIVES THAT STAYED HOME!! ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!
Tell Kly he needs to buy a vowel.
Wrong analogy.
The Republicans are not the opponents of the Democrats.
They are enablers.
” most who are critical are newbies and don’t declare what states they are from “
I am hardly a ‘newbie’, and I live in New Mexico, USA...
And I’m here to tell you and Ann Archy that I, personally, have cast my last ballot for a candidate I strongly disapprove of, just because he/she is ‘not a Democrat’...
If I can’t positively support a candidate, I’ll not pull the lever - IOW, I’ve reached the age where my personal integrity trumps ‘rah-rah’ political games....
So sue me....
As an AZ I’d much rather have both Kyl and McCain rather than Nelson and Martinez
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