Lindsay Graham announced his support for Elena Kagan to become the nation’s 4th female Supreme Court Justice today, in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on her nomination. Kagan will clear the Judiciary Committee later today. In his remarks announcing his support, Graham said that “There’s plenty of reasons for a conservative to vote no, but [...]

Not that passage wasn’t assured before, but Arlen Specter’s grudging support of Elena Kagan’s confirmation to the Supreme Court virtually ensures no Democratic defectors. Specter, during the confirmation hearings, expressed concern over Kagan’s lack of answers to his questions, but he concludes that she barely cleared the bar needed for his support. Specter’s remarks in [...]

Contra me, Joshua Green has a story in the Boston Globe on the importance of the Kagan hearings because of the window they opened into the new defining issue of the Court – corporate power. For while Kagan’s fate may not be in doubt, her confirmation hearings come at a time when the court is [...]

Robert Barnes and Amy Goldstein report that Elana Kagan predictably played things close to the vest in her confirmation hearings, as is the rule these days. This is, in fact, why I didn’t watch one second of them, because I don’t find them at all enlightening. Republican senators pressed Kagan on the issues that have [...]

A particularly insidious dog whistle to the right has cropped up in the Elana Kagan confirmation hearings. Suddenly the most popular topic for discussion is Thurgood Marshall, the late Supreme Court Justice for whom Kagan clerked for one year and with whom she disagreed quite a bit during that clerkship. Marshall dominated yesterday’s opening statements, [...]

At 12:30 pm ET, Elana Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination hearing begins with opening statements from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Kagan’s opening statement will probably conclude the hearing today, and shouldn’t be expected until much later. Kagan will be introduced by Massacusetts Senators John Kerry and Scott Brown. Doug Kendall of the Constitutional Accountability [...]

Patrick Leahy gives the news: At a hearing Wednesday morning, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) announced that proceedings to consider the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court will begin on June 28. “This is a reasonable schedule that is in line with past [...]