FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT ELENA KAGAN
1The New York native will be the fourth woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, following Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, now retired; Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sonia Sotomayor. Kagan is also the second woman to be nominated by President Obama. Once she is seated, it will mark the first time three women are serving simultaneously on the court. Said Obama: It is "a sign of progress that I relish not just as a father who wants limitless possibilities for my two daughters, but as an American proud that our Supreme Court will be more inclusive, more representative, and more reflective of us as a people than ever before."
2Kagan will be no stranger to the eight justices she is to join on the Supreme Court, having served as the government's top lawyer arguing cases before them as Obama's (and the nation's first female) solicitor general -- a post often referred to as the "10th justice." She's already friendly with a number of them.
3 Kagan, former dean of Harvard Law School, is the first Supreme Court nominee confirmed in nearly 40 years with no experience as a judge. Her lack of judicial experience was the stated reason for one fence-sitting Republican, Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, to announce his opposition to Kagan's confirmation Thursday, just hours before the vote. Though calling her "brilliant," Brown -- who had been seen as a potential GOP supporter -- said she was missing the necessary background to serve as a justice.
4 At age 50, Kagan could have a long tenure on the court, but her confirmation to replace the retired Justice John Paul Stevens is not seen as significantly altering the current, closely divided ideological makeup of the court, which is often split 5 to 4 on major decisions.
5 Kagan revealed little about what kind of justice she would be in testimony before senators, despite having famously penned a law review article blasting Supreme Court nominees for obfuscating before the Senate. She dodged questions about her personal beliefs and declined repeatedly to "grade" Supreme Court rulings. But Kagan took issue with an analogy made by Chief Justice John Roberts during his 2005 confirmation hearing, when he likened judges to baseball umpires who call balls and strikes. That is "correct in several important respects but like all metaphors it does have its limits," Kagan said, adding that it suggests judging is a "robotic enterprise."
