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Jul 3, 2010
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s pick for the top U.S. court, Elena Kagan, is speeding toward confirmation, with Republicans showing little appetite for a long-shot attempt to block her.
Barring an unexpected turn, Kagan will succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens and become the fourth female justice in the U.S. Supreme Court’s history. It would be the first time that three of the court’s nine justices were women.
“Solicitor General Kagan will be confirmed,” said Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, who chairs the Judiciary Committee considering her nomination.
Republicans sparred with her over abortion, gays in the military and other divisive issues, but Jon Kyl, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, said it would “highly unlikely” that Republicans would attempt a filibuster, a delaying tactic meant to block voting.
Republican committee member Sen. John Cornyn, when asked if Kagan was going to win confirmation, replied “I assume she will be.”
Kagan, 50, spent her last day before the committee Wednesday trying to reassure conservatives that she would be able to separate her personal and political views from a job as a justice on the ideologically split Supreme Court.
“Every judge has to do what he or she thinks the law requires,” she said. “But on the other hand, there’s no question that the court is served best and our country is served best when people trust the court as an entirely nonpolitical body.”
She later added: “As a judge, you are on nobody’s team. As a judge, you are an independent actor.”
Republicans still weren’t convinced, although her confirmation would not change the composition of the court of four liberals, four conservatives and swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Senators finished their public questioning of Kagan on Wednesday, but the confirmation hearing will not wrap until late Thursday with testimony from outside witnesses.
Once the public witnesses finish, Leahy will set a confirmation vote for Kagan in the Judiciary Committee, where Democrats hold a 12-7 advantage over the Republicans.
The full Senate, where Democrats control 58 votes to the Republicans’ 41, is likely to confirm the nomination before leaving for its August recess.
The Supreme Court is one of three branches of the U.S. government, designed in the Constitution with separate but equal powers. The nine-justice court was established to decide on the constitutionality of laws and the way they have been interpreted by judges in lower courts. That gives it huge power in deciding whether laws enacted by Congress and their application by the president’s executive branch are constitutional.
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