White House Anticipates Smooth Confirmation For Kagan

By Sarah Mamula - Talk Radio News Service

The White House predicts that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's confirmation next week will go smoothly, despite unease among Republican Senators over still unreleased documents.

In a conference call Friday with David Axelrod, Senior Advisor to the President, and White House Counsel Bob Bauer, the two emphasized the backing Kagan has received from both parties.

“One of the more striking features ... is the breadth of support that Elena Kagan ... has received from Democrats and Republicans and from lawyers on any side of the political divide,” Bauer said.

While there were initial rumors that Republicans could boycott the hearings over 1,600 documents withheld from the Committee from Kagan's days as a Clinton appointee, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the Ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, has promised that the minority party will be in attendance when the hearings open. However, during an interview with ABC, Sessions would not reject the possibility of a filibuster against the nominee.

In addition to the documents, some in the GOP are worried over Kagan's background. Axelrod dismissed concerns that Republicans could use the hearings to cast Kagan as a “judicial activist” for her history as a political appointee during the Clinton administration, arguing that her experience studying, teaching and practicing law while working as Solicitor General of the United States and working as Dean of the Harvard Law School will outweigh the label.

“I don’t think this is going to be the issue at the end of the day on which this nomination rests,” said Axelrod.

Kagan goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday. According to Axelrod, Kagan, who once described the confirmation process as a "ritual dance," will be well prepared.

“In the last week or so, she has spent several hours a day fielding questions,” said Axelrod. “She has thought a lot about these issues.”

U.S. Law Enforcement Officials Support Judge Sotomayor’s Nomination

By Mariko Lamb, Talk Radio News Service

Leading law enforcement and criminal justice officials joined Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) in a press
conference Tuesday to endorse the confirmation of Judge Sonia
Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sotomayor will “prosecute the guilty” and “protect the innocent,” said
Joseph Cassilly, President of the National District Attorneys
Association (NDAA).

“We’re not looking for any reassurance that she will be pro law
enforcement in all her decisions,” assured John Adler, President of
the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. “We only ask and
fully expect that she remain loyal to the Rule of Law,” and not
succumb to the “self-righteous bullying of special interest groups,”
he explained.

Despite the controversy surrounding Sotomayor’s overturned rulings in
New York’s Second District Court of Appeals and questions about her
allegedly biased judgments, Sen. Leahy urged his fellow legislators,
and the public at large, to “show respect for [the] third branch of
government” and its nominee.