WASHINGTON - Sen. Al Franken offered an early glimpse of the Senate hearings on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan in a recent speech before the American Constitutional Society.
Kagan's name didn't come up once.
Instead, the Minnesota Democrat used the occasion to unleash a broadside on what he sees as the conservative slant of the nation's high court under Chief Justice John Roberts, whose pro-business rulings, Franken said, "consistently and intentionally protected and promoted the interests of the powerful over those of individual Americans."
The attack line, which he expects to reprise Wednesday when he and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, also D-Minn., get their first chance to question Kagan in public, reflects a broader election-year debate both parties are waging about the ideological direction of the court.
"She's the occasion for a broader symbolic political debate," said Hamline University political scientist David Schultz. "It would be surprising if a congressional hearing, a confirmation hearing in particular, didn't have a political subtext."
With Kagan's confirmation all but assured, and substantive answers about case law considered largely out of bounds, Kagan can do little but duck the crossfire. "It's a big yawn for a lot of people, because the conclusion is clear," said University of Richmond Law School Prof. Carl Tobias, a longtime court watcher.
Meanwhile, Tobias said, "Republicans and Democrats have legitimate issues about the direction of the court."
For Franken, as for other Democrats and liberal interest groups, the larger strategy has been to anticipate Republican attacks on President Obama's solicitor general as a liberal activist who might try to bend the law to her own social views.
