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Source: Elena Kagan picked for Supreme Court
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-05-10 21:14
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 Solicitor General Elena Kagan speaks during the annual meeting of the 7th Circuit Bar Association & Judicial Conference of the 7th Circuit Monday, May3, 2010 in Chicago. [Agencies] |
WASHINGTON - Solicitor General Elena Kagan will be nominated Monday to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama, a person familiar with the president's thinking says, positioning the top US court to have three women justices for the first time.
Obama plans to announce his choice at 10 am (1400 GMT) in the East Room of the White House. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision, which came after a monthlong search, had not been made public. Shortly before 8 am (1200 GMT), Kagan emerged from her Washington, D.C., apartment, got into the back seat of a vehicle and was driven away. She did not acknowledge the photographers and reporters who had gathered to await her appearance.
Kagan, 50, is known as sharp and politically savvy and has enjoyed a blazing legal career. She was the first female dean of Harvard Law School, first woman to serve as the top Supreme Court lawyer for any administration, and now first in Obama's mind to succeed liberal Justice John Paul Stevens.
Kagan would be the youngest justice on the court, which would give her the opportunity to extend Obama's legacy for a generation. She would also bring some fresh blood to the court's liberal wing in replacing the 90-year-old Stevens.
Kagan must first win Senate confirmation.
A source close to the selection process said a central element in Obama's choice was Kagan's reputation for bringing together people of competing views and earning their respect.
Kagan came to the fore as a candidate who had worked closely with all three branches of government, a legal mind with both a sense of modesty and sense of humor. The source spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss factors that led to Kagan's impending nomination.
Kagan has clerked for Thurgood Marshall, worked for Bill Clinton and earned a stellar reputation as a student, teacher and manager of the elite academic world. Her standing has risen in Obama's eyes as his government's lawyer before the high court over the last year.
Yet Kagan would be the first justice without judicial experience in almost 40 years. The last two were William H. Rehnquist and Lewis F. Powell Jr., both of whom joined the court in 1972.
All of the three other finalists she beat out for the job are federal appeals court judges, and all nine of the current justices served on the federal bench before being elevated.
Kagan's fate will be up to a Senate dominated by Democrats, who with 59 votes have more than enough to confirm her, even though they are one shy of being able to halt any Republican stalling effort.
For the second straight summer, the nation can expected an intense Supreme Court confirmation debate even though, barring a surprise, Kagan is likely to emerge as a justice.
Supreme Court justices wield enormous power over the daily life of Americans. Any one of them can cast the deciding vote on matters of life and death, individual freedoms and government power. Presidents serve four-year terms; justices have tenure for life.
Republicans have shown no signs in advance that they would try to prevent a vote on Kagan, but they are certain to grill her in confirmation hearings over her experience, her thin record of legal writings and her objections to the military's policy about gays.
When she was confirmed as solicitor general in 2009, only seven Republicans backed her.
