Patricia Murphy
Columnist
Columnist
Posted:
05/9/10
05/9/10
President Barack Obama will name Elena Kagan to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court, Politics Daily has learned. Kagan, 50, is currently the solicitor general of the United States and is the former dean of Harvard Law School. If confirmed, she would be the fourth woman to serve on the high court, and the third woman on the current court.
Kagan was on the short list for the last Supreme Court vacancy that Sonia Sotomayor eventually filled. Both President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have interviewed her to fill Stevens' seat on the court.
On Sunday morning, Attorney General Eric Holder hinted that Kagan could be the next member of the high court. "She's done a wonderful job in the Justice Department. I've known her since the Clinton years. And I think she would be a great justice," Holder said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"I think people will get an understanding who she is, what her judicial philosophy is, if in fact she is the pick," Holder said.
A native of New York City, Kagan attended Princeton University and Oxford University in England, and finished magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.
In addition to having been the dean at Harvard law, she was also a professor there and at the University of Chicago, where Obama was a constitutional law professor. She also clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and was in private law practice in Washington, D.C.
Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary and current economic adviser to President Obama, named Kagan to be the first woman to be dean of Harvard Law School in 2003.
Although her legal career has included time in private practice, academia and government service, including four years as associate White House counsel in the Clinton White House, she has never served as a judge.
Beyond Kagan's extensive resume, Democrats consider her strongest credential to be the fact that she was confirmed by the Senate in 2009 as the Justice Department's top litigator. The Senate voted then, 61 to 31, to confirm her, with conservatives Tom Coburn, Orrin Hatch and Jon Kyl voting for her. All 31 no votes came from Republicans, including the top GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions.
If the president formally nominates Kagan on Monday, as expected, her nomination will go to the Senate Judiciary Committee and then the full Senate for consideration. The process will likely last throughout the summer, and if successful, Kagan could be seated as a part of the Court's first day of session in October.
Kagan was on the short list for the last Supreme Court vacancy that Sonia Sotomayor eventually filled. Both President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have interviewed her to fill Stevens' seat on the court.
On Sunday morning, Attorney General Eric Holder hinted that Kagan could be the next member of the high court. "She's done a wonderful job in the Justice Department. I've known her since the Clinton years. And I think she would be a great justice," Holder said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"I think people will get an understanding who she is, what her judicial philosophy is, if in fact she is the pick," Holder said.
A native of New York City, Kagan attended Princeton University and Oxford University in England, and finished magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.
In addition to having been the dean at Harvard law, she was also a professor there and at the University of Chicago, where Obama was a constitutional law professor. She also clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and was in private law practice in Washington, D.C.
Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary and current economic adviser to President Obama, named Kagan to be the first woman to be dean of Harvard Law School in 2003.
Although her legal career has included time in private practice, academia and government service, including four years as associate White House counsel in the Clinton White House, she has never served as a judge.
Beyond Kagan's extensive resume, Democrats consider her strongest credential to be the fact that she was confirmed by the Senate in 2009 as the Justice Department's top litigator. The Senate voted then, 61 to 31, to confirm her, with conservatives Tom Coburn, Orrin Hatch and Jon Kyl voting for her. All 31 no votes came from Republicans, including the top GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions.
If the president formally nominates Kagan on Monday, as expected, her nomination will go to the Senate Judiciary Committee and then the full Senate for consideration. The process will likely last throughout the summer, and if successful, Kagan could be seated as a part of the Court's first day of session in October.
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