Kagan Supreme Court Hearings – Listen to live audio of Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings beginning at 12:30pm ET on VPR
UPDATEVPR has Senator Leahy’s prepared opening remarks here.
We meet today to consider President Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States. Just last year, this Committee and the Senate reviewed her record, and a bipartisan majority voted to confirm her to be the Solicitor General, the top lawyer representing the United States before the Supreme Court. With her confirmation, Solicitor General Kagan became the first woman in America’s history to serve in that position, often referred to as the “Tenth Justice.” She was nominated to be Solicitor General while serving as Dean of Harvard Law School, the first woman to hold that position in the school’s 193-year history.
Today’s National Law Journal (NLJ) has a terrific interview with Senator Patrick Leahy, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the confirmation hearings today for the possible appointment of Elena Kagan as a Supreme Court Justice.
In his post Managing the Kagan Confirmation Hearing, author David Ingram queries Senate Judiciary chairman Leahy as to why “questions about the nominee’s personal life are off-limits”.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has participated in the confirmation hearing for every U.S. Supreme Court justice since Sandra Day O’Connor’s in 1981.
The National Law Journal: With President Obama’s nominees, you often use your first question to ask about a controversial subject. For example, your first question to Eric Holder was about waterboarding. Would you say you try to deflate the opposition in these hearings?
Sen. Patrick Leahy: No, I want to learn as much as I can about the person, especially on a significant nomination. My questions are usually designed to answer things that I’m most interested in. And if it goes into controversial issues, obviously I assume that a lot of people are interested in the same issues.
My favorite part of the interview is here:
Leahy: I went through a great deal of questions with her privately and in the hearing when she was up for solicitor general. I will ask more when she’s before us for this confirmation hearing. Primarily, I want the American people to hear from her. I think we can do a great service to the American public by making sure they get some sense of who the nominee is.
NLJ: There have been complaints in the past that that’s hard to do, because senators are seen using their time to draw attention to themselves rather than to ask about the nominee. Is that something that you, as chairman, try to regulate?
Leahy: Every senator has to speak for himself or herself. Most of my questions are pretty short. I want to hear from the nominee. Outside of the opening statements we all make, I don’t feel any need to give long speeches to either impress the nominee or the American public.[emphasis added]
What is your take on the NLJ interview and the Kagan hearings?