Kagan's views

In 1995, Elena Kagan wrote a law review article calling the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees a “vapid and hollow charade” because nominees were allowed to “stonewall” discussion of their actual views. Kagan may feel a little differently now that she’s been nominated to the high court.

Experts predict a battle but not a war over Kagan’s nomination. She’s currently the U.S. solicitor general and was once the wildly popular dean of Harvard Law School, where she made a point of recruiting prominent conservative law professors. She is widely regarded as one of the country’s foremost legal minds.

But she’s never been a judge. In some ways, that’s a positive — she brings diversity to the court, and it means she doesn’t have the kind of long paper trail that’s torpedoed the nominations of other highly qualified candidates. But it also means that no one on the right or the left knows exactly where she stands. The question is, how will Elena Kagan stonewall the senators when they press her for clarification?

The fact that we’re unsure of Kagan’s positions after she’s spent decades in the public eye is a reflection of her character and her temperament. Like President Barack Obama, she sees herself as a bridge builder and a pragmatist. Though she served in the Clinton administration, she was beloved by many Republicans for actively recruiting conservative law professors to Harvard and for her belief in a strong executive branch.

Those same things tend to make progressives nervous. In Kagan, Obama isn’t seeking an ideologue but someone who can influence other members of the court, particularly swing vote Anthony Kennedy. Kagan certainly has the intellect to be a justice. Her confirmation hearings will show whether she’s got the political savvy.

— San Francisco Chronicle