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Should The Senate Confirm Elena Kagan

Should the Senate Confirm Elena Kagan


  • Total voters
    49
When you say "fix", did you mean that in a Bush kind of way? :lol:

No, I had a typo in one of the items and Redress was nice enough to fix it for me.
 
I think someone with a background other than a judge would be refreshing. Justices from all sorts of backgrounds have gone on to be effective at their job.

Personally, I think someone with a background other than a judge would be refreshing too. However, I am still against Kagan.

It amazes me that critics of Kagan are so up in arms about her lack of experience as judicial offical and yet completely ignore the political powers she wishes to give to the office of the President and thus give more limits to Congress. That, to me, is by far scarier than any lack of experience.
 
I normally would agree with you

but using Obama's standards concerning the far more qualified Roberts and Alito the answer is no

Why do Obama's personal standards when he was a senator have anything to do with Elena Kagan?
 
Why do Obama's personal standards when he was a senator have anything to do with Elena Kagan?

Yeah, I'm not getting that one either. If you are using Obama's standards, than the answer would be yes, or else he wouldn't have nominated her.
 
No way would I agree with her appointment even if Hell froze over, pigs started flying and she was Mrs. Clause up at the North Pole. She has minimal experience as a judge, she would wipe her ass with constitution before actually reading it and falsified a document by changing what it said. Is this loony-bin-escapee really someone we want in our Supreme Court? My answer is a resounding, "NO!"
 
Newsflash: 41 of the 109 US Supreme Court Justices had no prior judicial experience.

Experience needed? The long history of nonjudge justices.
Nearly half of justices had no prior experience on the bench.

John Marshall is widely revered as "the great Chief Justice," but before joining the Supreme Court in 1801 he had never served a day in judicial robes and lost the only case he argued at the high court.

Earl Warren had worked for 18 years as a prosecutor and was three times elected governor of California. But he had no prior judicial experience. Nor did William Rehnquist, Felix Frankfurter, and Louis Brandeis.

...

Lewis Powell, Abe Fortas, and Brandeis were all lawyers with no judicial experience at the time of their nominations.

Full list here.
 
I say no. Lack of experience, including absolutely no experience on a bench unless you count a park bench at a family reunion. Way too ideological. Too apt for judicial activism.

Having said that, she'll be confirmed. I'd just prefer it if we didn't have a minority president so gung-ho on getting minority positions filled. God forbid we give an old white qualified man a job when we can squeeze some more blood out of the Affirmative Action turnip.
 
Newsflash: 41 of the 109 US Supreme Court Justices had no prior judicial experience.



Full list here.

You're absolutely right. Elena Kagan doesn't deserve to be appointed to the Supreme Court for entirely different reasons.
 
No practical experience, willing to interpret The U.S. constitution as applied to international law(which is a joke in a sovereign nation), seems to feel that overreach is acceptable against the ninth and tenth amendments(That should be a disqualification on it's face), unwilling to state affirmatively on many positions yea or nay.

This means she couldn't be trusted to rule correctly and so no, she should not be confirmed.
 
Alot of you seem worried about her lack of experiance.

That's not the main issue as I see it.

It's what her apparent positions are on the various issues that may come before the SCOTUS that put me off of supporting her nomination.
 
Alot of you seem worried about her lack of experiance.

That's not the main issue as I see it.

It's what her apparent positions are on the various issues that may come before the SCOTUS that put me off of supporting her nomination.
It's all part of the same package if we're being honest. She will have to learn protocol and probably won't care as long as she can get a few brownie points for whatever agenda she happens to carry, which is yet another concern, we don't know where her core is on most of the issues and it sounds horrid when we look at the general area.
 
Is there any way to remove a SCOTUS member?

Short of their resignation?

I have never heard of it happening, but then I have little knowledge of the SCTOUS history.
 
Is there any way to remove a SCOTUS member?

Short of their resignation?

I have never heard of it happening, but then I have little knowledge of the SCTOUS history.
Yes, but they would have to commit a high crime. They are subject to Impeachment and conviction. One justice was removed in 1805- Samuel Chase by the house. Article is here: Supreme Court of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To the best of my knowledge any decision or opinion they render is protected as judicial scrutiny as long as they didn't have to recuse themselves due to personal conflict and they cannot be removed for incompetence.
 
I say no. She basically has no experience as a judge. The fact that she required the Study of International and Foreign Law but not U.S. Constitutional Law as a Harvard dean proves that she does not give a rats ass about the constitution.

I guess I don't see the correlation with NOT requiring Constitutional Law and not giving a rat's ass about the Constitution.
 
I voted no due to lack of judicial experience.

So I assume your answer would be no when Rehnquist was nominated since he didn't have any judicial experience either.

Changed spelling of Rehnquist. ;)
 
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No, I don't think she will interpret "The Constitution" as written, so that pretty much disqualifies her from my pool of applicants.

I am guessing that Roberts would claim that Stevens doesn't interpret the Constitution as written and that Stevens would claim that Roberts doesn't interpret the Constitution as written. It's all in how you view the Constitution.
 
I am guessing that Roberts would claim that Stevens doesn't interpret the Constitution as written and that Stevens would claim that Roberts doesn't interpret the Constitution as written. It's all in how you view the Constitution.

Well, it's not hard to understand.
The Constitution is supposed to be the highest law of the land, not a generalized set of guidelines that we can blur, whenever we feel like it.
 
Well, it's not hard to understand.
The Constitution is supposed to be the highest law of the land, not a generalized set of guidelines that we can blur, whenever we feel like it.

If it is not hard to understand, why is it so many judges don't understand it?
 
If it is not hard to understand, why is it so many judges don't understand it?

Politicization, personal morality, social stereotypes etc.

Each judge represents a political/moral agenda to some degree.
Many hold social stereotypes about things, that override their duty to uphold The Constitution.
 
Politicization, personal morality, social stereotypes etc.

Each judge represents a political/moral agenda to some degree.
Many hold social stereotypes about things, that override their duty to uphold The Constitution.

But you (and anyone who agrees with you) are able to be bias-free and objective about how to interpret the Constitution?
 
If it is not hard to understand, why is it so many judges don't understand it?

On the other hand, if Judges don't understand it, perhaps they shouldn't be Judges.
 
Politicization, personal morality, social stereotypes etc.

Each judge represents a political/moral agenda to some degree.
Many hold social stereotypes about things, that override their duty to uphold The Constitution.

Seems more likely that your "not hard to understand" is not agreed to by a lot of people with a lot more knowledge on the subject than you.
 
On the other hand, if Judges don't understand it, perhaps they shouldn't be Judges.

Yeah, but Bush still put 2 of them on the Supreme Court...
 
But you (and anyone who agrees with you) are able to be bias-free and objective about how to interpret the Constitution?

There is no such thing as "bias free."
The Constitution was written with bias, towards a freedom based society.
So in that regard, I am absolutely biased.
 
Seems more likely that your "not hard to understand" is not agreed to by a lot of people with a lot more knowledge on the subject than you.

I willing to wager that 99.999% of all judges understand exactly what it means but many of them would rather impart their personal beliefs over written law because there are no consequences when they do so.
 
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