Elena Kagan found herself in a slightly uncomfortable position when she appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee. There were no cringe-worthy reveals about coke cans and pubic hairs, and certainly no one "borked" her during her hearing. Instead, the solicitor general-designate was simply busted for not practicing what she preached:
She once wrote that nominees should answer questions from senators.
And in no uncertain terms, either. Reviewing Stephen Carter's book "The Confirmation Mess" for the University of Chicago Law Review in 1995, Kagan opined that "when the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce."
She thought that executive branch nominees, "for whom 'independence' is no virtue," really deserved to be grilled.
Whoops.
Kagan, of course, deflected all grilling. When asked about her previous statement, Kagan replied to senators that she had changed her stance on the openness of nominees. She also held that her opinions on legal controversies did not matter -- only her willingness to uphold the laws of the United States when representing the government before the Supreme Court.
Because of her reticence, three Republican senators voted against moving her nomination forward and three abstained, resulting in a final committee vote of 13-3.
Still, better to lose unanimous support at one step of a confirmation process than to permanently sabotage one's chances of ever becoming a justice by admitting something silly like, say, that you agree with Roe v. Wade.
--Alexandra Gutierrez
