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President Obama on Monday morning tapped U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court, where, if confirmed, she would be the fourth woman ever to sit on the court and the first justice in nearly 40 years without judicial experience.
At a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Obama lauded Ms. Kagan, the former dean of Harvard Law School, as “one of the nation’s foremost legal minds” who will bring “fairmindedness and skill as a consensus-builder” to the court.
“While we can’t presume to replace Justice Stevens’ wisdom or experience, I have selected a nominee who I believe embodies that same excellence, independence, integrity and passion for the law and who ultimately can provide that same leadership on the court,” Mr. Obama said, standing next to Ms. Kagan and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Mr. Obama praised 50-year-old Ms. Kagan’s appreciation of how the law “affects the lives of everyday people” — a key quality he outlined at the beginning of his monthlong search for a nominee — and the fact she was both the first female dean at Harvard Law and the first female solicitor general.
If Ms. Kagan is confirmed, she will join Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor on the bench — the first time three female justices will have served together on the high court.
Ms. Kagan has been representing the Obama administration before the Supreme Court for about a year and already was confirmed by the Senate. She is not viewed as the kind of liberal champion that has marked Mr. Stevens’ long tenure on the court, though she has taken positions in the past that are sure to provide the right with at least some ammunition: At Harvard she barred military recruiters from campus because of the government’s ban on openly gay service members. At the same time, she has been praised for her outreach to conservative professors and groups during her time there.
In her brief remarks Monday, Ms. Kagan thanked Mr. Obama for the “honor of a lifetime.”
“I am honored and I am humbled by this nomination and the confidence you have shown in me,” she said.
Mr. Obama called on the Senate to act on her nomination so that she can be seated before the court’s term begins in October.
Ms. Kagan also served in the Clinton administration and was nominated to the appellate bench in 1999, but her nomination was never voted on. Because she has not served as a judge, there is no paper trail of opinions from which to glean a clear judicial philosophy. The last time a president nominated someone without judicial experience was in 1971, when former President Richard M. Nixon picked Lewis F. Powell Jr. and William H. Rehnquist.
The Senate approved Ms. Kagan’s nomination as solicitor general by a vote of 61 to 31 in March 2009, with the support of seven Republicans. While that approval might make it politically more difficult for a member of the GOP to vote against her this time around, nominations to the Supreme Court are always taken more seriously because they are lifetime appointments.
In a statement, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Ms. Kagan will bring a “diversity of experience missing since Justice [Sandra Day] O’Connor retired in 2006.”
“I have urged President Obama to look outside the judicial monastery to identify qualified nominees who will bring a diversity of life experience to the Court. Elena Kagan is just such a nominee,” Mr. Leahy said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, meanwhile vowed to ensure that Ms. Kagan’s record reflects a fidelity to the law.
“She has been nominated for a lifetime appointment on the nation’s highest court, and we will carefully review her brief litigation experience, as well as her judgment and her career in academia, both as a professor and as an administrator,” Mr. McConnell said. “Fulfilling our duty to advise and consent on a nomination to this office requires a thorough process, not a rush to judgment.”
The first case Ms. Kagan argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of the Obama administration was Citizens United, in which a divided court struck down limits on corporate and union spending in elections, arguing it violated free speech. That decision drew criticism from high-ranking Democrats, including Mr. Obama, who lashed out against the Roberts court during his State of the Union address in January.
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