Senate Judiciary Committee

The Confirmation Process: Is This the Judiciary Committee We Deserve?

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A lot of ink (virtual and otherwise) has been spent the last couple of days grading the performance of Elena Kagan at her Supreme Court confirmation hearings before the Senate. If confirmed, this week is the last time Kagan has to talk to the people, so it’s right to focus on how she did.

But there seems to be a media blind spot when it comes to grading the Senate Judiciary Committee itself. These 19 elected representatives are entrusted with the awesome responsibility of being the people’s voice in a process that ends with a lifetime appointment. Yet few seem to care if these guys are doing a good job — or if they even know what they are talking about. Sure, we’ve got to live with confirmed SCOTUS Justices for the rest of their lives, be we have direct electoral control over the Senators who do the confirming.  Is it too much to ask that we find 19 people in the entire U.S. Senate that actually understand what judges do for a living?

Let’s get this ball rolling. Which Senator best fulfilled his or her duty to all of us, and which ones need to be transferred to Foreign Relations — where only our enemies and allies have to suffer under their stupidity?

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Elena Kagan’s ‘Judicial Hero’: Who the Heck Is Aharon Barak?

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Aharon Barak wonders: Why do Senate Republicans hate me so much?

Yesterday morning, while I was shamelessly snooping scanning the bookshelves of my significant other, a handsome book caught my eye. The title, Purposive Interpretation in Law, wasn’t very sexy, but the author’s name grabbed my attention: AHARON BARAK.

Yes, the Aharon Barak — the man whose name has been constantly invoked this week, over the past three days of Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings. “The other white meat Barak,” not be confused with our president Barack (Hussein Obama). The bugaboo of the rule of law, in the eyes of Kagan critics. Quite possibly “the worst judge on the planet,” in the words of failed SCOTUS nominee Robert Bork.

As I picked up Barak’s book from the shelf, a chill ran up my spine. I felt myself in the presence of a judicial Voldemort. Should owning a book by Aharon Barak be grounds for breaking up with someone? Is it tantamount to owning a lovingly dog-eared copy of Mein Kampf?

I needed to educate myself. Just who is Aharon Barak?

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Top Five Elena Kagan Quotes from Day 3 of Her Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings

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Elena Kagan: Yay, I'm done!

Elena Kagan slogged through her third day of hearings and last day of questioning. We liveblogged the proceedings (Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3) and we’re a bit tired of listening to senators talk. We prefer the sweet sounds of judges opining.

We’re surely not as tired of it as Lady Kaga, though. She noted that she has found the hearings to be “somewhat wearying.” But now she’s done. Senator Leahy told her she can put her feet up and relax after today, to which she responded, “I can’t come back?”

“If you’re that much of a glutton for punishment, you’re not qualified for the Supreme Court,” exclaimed Committee Chairman Leahy. Kagan did come across as eminently qualified, though; it’s fair to expect smooth sailing for her to the bench at One First Street.

Tomorrow, the senators will be grilling a lengthy list of witnesses, though we’re not planning on liveblogging now that the Divine Miss K is no longer on stage. She wore a navy blue blazer and pearls today (much more demure than her bright blue attire Monday). What pearls dropped from her lips? Our top five favorite quotes from day 3 of the hearings, after the jump.

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Liveblogging the Kagan Confirmation Hearings: Day 3 (Afternoon)

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The kabuki theater intermission is over. We’re back for the afternoon session on Day 3 of the Elena Kagan Senate Confirmation Hearings.

Kash is liveblogging this afternoon and hoping the senators wrap up earlier than 7 p.m. today…
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Top Five Elena Kagan Quotes from Day 2 of Her Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings

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This week, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is in the hot seat spotlight. Today, she was feeling the heat from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. The Judiciary Committee let the session go past the expected 6 p.m. end time, noting that Kagan has a reputation for “toughness.” Regardless, she seemed irritable about the day going for so long.

We’re just pleased that Lady Kaga is now getting the paparazzi attention that she deserves. You can plug into the hearings online in so many ways. You can stream the hearings from a webcast on the Senate Judiciary website. You can follow various liveblogs, including that of SCOTUSblog or ours here at ATL (where we had over 2,500 people following, bantering and commenting today). Or you can follow court watchers on Twitter, like Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick or our ATLblog feed.

We’re having fun watching Solicitor General Kagan’s nomination dance with the senators, with the exception of sitting through Senator Specter’s bombastic questioning. He was more interested in hearing himself talk than hearing Lady Kaga sing. And that’s unfortunate, as she had some very nice turns of phrases today.

Our five favorite Kagan quotes from Day 2 of the hearings, after the jump.

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Liveblogging the Kagan Confirmation Hearings: Day 2 (Afternoon)

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Welcome back from lunch. We will now begin the afternoon session of day 2 of Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

Your Above the Law editors are taking turns at liveblogging. Elie has handed the controls over to Lat…
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Liveblogging the Kagan Confirmation Hearings: Day 2 (Morning)

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Welcome to day 2 of the confirmation hearings of Elena Kagan, currently the U.S. Solicitor General, to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Your Above the Law editors will be taking turns at liveblogging the proceedings…

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Liveblogging the Kagan Confirmation Hearings: Opening Statements

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Here we go, yo: the confirmation hearings of Elena Kagan, currently the U.S. Solicitor General, to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Click on the boxes below to follow the liveblog….

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ATL Movie Night: Advise & Dissent

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A tale of three nominees (left to right): John Roberts, Harriet Miers and Samuel Alito.


Last night I headed across town to NYU Law School for a screening of Advise & Dissent, a new documentary about the Supreme Court confirmation process. Here’s a brief description of the film:

ADVISE & DISSENT is the first documentary to go behind the lines and into the trenches of the judicial confirmation wars. SCOTUSblog has called it “a fascinating, balanced insider look,” and Politico named it “a must see.” Timely and timeless, the film illuminates the collision of politics and justice.

Last night’s showing of the movie was followed by a conversation, featuring the following participants:

A report about the movie screening and the panel discussion, after the jump.

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Taking A Closer Look at Elena Kagan’s Description of Confirmation Hearings as a ‘Vapid and Hollow Charade’

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A younger Elena Kagan

It’s Elena Kagan’s “wise Latina” comment. Just as Court watchers dug up a controversial, eight-year-old statement by Sonia Sotomayor last year, they have unearthed a law review article that Kagan authored in 1995 when she was a young law professor at the University of Chicago. In it, she criticized the Supreme Court confirmation hearings as they existed then (and now) as a “vapid and hollow charade,” in desperate need of reform to get at a nominee’s true judicial philosophy and views.

Now the statement is being thrown back at Elena Kagan as she prepares for her own confirmation hearings. Such is the nature of the modern confirmation process, when everything one has said or written can be found in the immense digital file cabinet that is the Internet (which is not always a bad thing, as Lat and Kash argue in a Washington Post piece today on myths about the confirmation process). A search of “Kagan and charade” in Google returned over 5,000 results this morning.

This seems like an opportune time to take a more thorough look at the 25-page book review from which the sound bite comes, and to highlight other passages that shed light on a 35-year-old Kagan’s opinion of the confirmation process. Not all of it casts a dark shadow when brought to light today. Regarding a nominee’s qualifications for the highest court, she presciently asked:

Must, for example …, a nominee have served on another appellate court — or may (as I believe) she demonstrate the requisite intelligence and legal ability through academic scholarship, the practice of law, or governmental service of some other kind?

Perhaps by serving as Harvard Law School dean, and then as Solicitor General?

What other gems can be found in the 15-year-old document?

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