"The advantage of Elena Kagan".. by E J Dionne

[Cha]

"Last May, when President Obama was considering his first Supreme Court nomination that eventually went to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, I made the case for Elena Kagan. I see no reason to change what I wrote then. She's just as smart as she was, even more experienced and still has the right temperament.

I would add only that I think she, like one of the runners-up, Merrick Garland -- I still hope there is a place for him on the court -- is well-placed to fight the necessary battle right now, which is against the rise of conservative judicial activism. I've tried to make this case as often as I could, most recently at the end of April when I wrote in my column: "Above all, it should become clear that the danger of judicial activism now comes from the right, not the left. It is conservatives, not liberals, who are using the courts to overturn the decisions made by democratically elected bodies in areas such as pay discrimination, school integration, antitrust laws and worker safety regulation."

Precisely because Kagan is not seen as an ideologue and has a long history of cordial and thoughtful intellectual and personal relationships with those to her right, she is the kind of person who can make the necessary case for judicial restraint. What some of my friends on the left might see as a disadvantage -- they were looking for more of a fighting liberal this time -- I see as a potential advantage for Kagan, given what I see as the central task for judicial progressives now. My hunch is that while some on the right will fight her nomination, she is likely to go through pretty easily. And she should.

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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/05/the_advantage_of_elena_kagan.html

[goclark]

1. Excellent!