Kagan Says She’ll “Make No Pledges” But She Previously Criticized “The Recent Hearings On Supreme Court Nominees” For Taking “On An Air Of Vacuity And Farce,” Saying “Senators Effectively Have Accepted The Limits On Inquiry”
ELENA KAGAN:“I Will Make No Pledges This Week…”
(Elena Kagan, Opening Statement, Judiciary Committee, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 6/28/10)
ELENA KAGAN: “The Problem Is Not That Senators Engage In Substantive Discussion With Supreme Court Nominees; The Problem Is That They Do Not. Senators Effectively Have Accepted The Limits On Inquiry. … The Challenge Now Is To Over-Throw Them.” “The problem is not that the Bork hearings have set a pattern for all others; the problem is that they have not. And the problem is not that senators engage in substantive discussion with Supreme Court nominees; the problem is that they do not. Senators effectively have accepted the limits on inquiry Carter proposes; the challenge now is to over-throw them.” (Elena Kagan, “Review: Confirmation Messes, Old and New,” The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol.62, No. 2 (Spring, 1995), P.942)
KAGAN: “I Suspect That Both [Ginsburg And Breyer] Appreciated That, For Them (As For Most), The Safest And Surest Route To The Prize Lay In Alternating Platitudinous Statement And Judicious Silence. Who Would Have Done Anything Different, In The Absence Of Pressure From Members Of Congress? And Of Such Pressure, There Was Little Evidence.” (Elena Kagan, “Review: Confirmation Messes, Old and New,” The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol.62, No. 2 (Spring, 1995), P.928)
ELENA KAGAN: “The Recent Hearings On Supreme Court Nominees” Have Taken “On An Air Of Vacuity And Farce.” “The recent hearings on Supreme Court nominees, though, suggest another question: might we now have a distinct and more troubling confirmation mess? If recent hearings lacked acrimony, they also lacked seriousness and substance. … When the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce, and the Senate becomes incapable of either properly evaluating nominees or appropriately educating the public.” (Elena Kagan, “Review: Confirmation Messes, Old and New,” The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol.62, No. 2 (Spring, 1995), P.920)
KAGAN: “Subsequent Hearings Have Presented To The Public A Vapid And Hollow Charade, In Which Repetition Of Platitudes Has Replaced Discussion Of Viewpoints And Personal Anecdotes Have Supplanted Legal Analysis.” (Elena Kagan, “Review: Confirmation Messes, Old and New,” The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol.62, No. 2 (Spring, 1995), P.941)
Today She Wants To “Safeguard The Rule Of Law” But Previously Praised The Judicial Philosophy Where “You Do What You Think Is Right And Let The Law Catch Up” And “Bridge The Gap Between Law And Society.”
ELENA KAGAN: “And What The Supreme Court Does Is To Safeguard The Rule Of Law, Through A Commitment To Even-Handedness, Principle, And Restraint.” (Elena Kagan, Opening Statement, Judiciary Committee, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 6/28/10)
JUSTICE MARSHALL Describing His Judicial Philosophy: “You Do What You Think Is Right And Let The Law Catch Up.” “At Justice Marshall’s lunch, a clerk asked him to describe his judicial philosophy. From most Justices, it was the sort of question that prompted vacuous homilies, stale leftovers from the judicial confirmation process. Justice Marshall, who had little patience for such platitudes, actually answered the question. ‘You do what you think is right and let the law catch up.’” (Deborah Rhode, “Letting The Law Catch Up,” Standford Law Review, Vol. 44, P.1259, Summer, 1992)
ELENA KAGAN: Justice Marshall’s Judicial Philosophy “A Thing Of Glory.” “For in Justice Marshall's view, constitutional interpretation demanded, above all else, one thing from the courts: it demanded that the courts show a special solicitude for the despised and disadvantaged. It was the role of the courts, in interpreting the Constitution, to protect the people who went unprotected by every other organ of government-to safeguard the interests of people who had no other champion. The Court existed primarily to fulfill this mission. … however much some recent Justices have sniped at that vision, it remains a thing of glory.” (Elena Kagan, “For Justice Marshall,” 71 Texas Law Review 1125, 1993)
AHARON BARAK, FORMER PRESIDENT OF ISRAEL’S SUPREME COURT: Judge’s Role “Is Not Restricted To Adjudicating Disputes In Which Parties Claim That Their Personal Rights Have Been Violated.” (Aharon Barak, The Judge In A Democracy, 2006, pg. 193)
BARAK: Judge’s Role “Is To Bridge The Gap Between Law And Society.” (Aharon Barak, The Judge In A Democracy, 2006, pg. 132)
ELENA KAGAN: “[Barak Is] A Great, Great Judge.” (CSPAN, 11/11/02)
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