Six times in the past nine months, Solicitor General Elena Kagan has come to the mahogany lectern in the Supreme Court to argue the government's case before the justices she now hopes to join soon.An intimidating setting for any lawyer, the venue is all the more daunting for Kagan because her courtroom experience before appearing before the justices was exactly nil.
Yet "General Kagan" held her own and emerged to declare the experience "a great deal of fun." Kagan is the first woman to serve as the government's top lawyer at the Supreme Court.Kagan won one of the two cases that have been decided thus far. Those results have more to do with the strength of the cases she inherited than her persuasive abilities in a courtroom.
On April 9, 2010, Justice John Paul Stevens announced that he would retire as soon as the Court finished its current caseload in late June or July, triggering a new round of speculation about Kagan's potential nomination to the bench.
In a Fresh Dialogues interview, Jeffrey Toobin — a Supreme Court analyst and Kagan's friend and law school classmate— speculated that Kagan would likely be President Obama's nominee, describing her as "very much an Obama type person, a Democrat..."This possibility has alarmed many liberals and progressives, who worry that "replacing Stevens with Kagan risks moving the Court to the Right, perhaps substantially to the Right."
However Maggie Gallagher, writing for the National Review, argues that 'A Vote for Kagan is a vote for Gay marriage'.As Kagan's name was mentioned as a possible replacement for Justice Stevens, the New York Times noted that she "has supported assertions of executive power."This view of vast executive power has caused some commentators to fear that she would reverse the delicate majority in favor of protecting civil liberties on the Supreme Court were she to replace Stevens.
On May 9, 2010, it was reported that President Obama had chosen Kagan as his nominee to succeed Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. If confirmed by the Senate, Kagan would be the first justice in nearly four decades without any prior experience as a judge;the last justice confirmed without prior experience as a judge was William Rehnquist in 1972;
she would also become the fourth female justice in the Supreme Court's history, and the third on the current bench. She would also become the eighth Jewish justice in the Supreme Court's history, and the third on the current bench.