Summary
U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, President Obama's choice to replace liberal Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stephens is a lawyer with a thin legal resume-but a lifelong history of far left political activism. If she is confirmed, she will impose the Obama agenda on our nation for the next 30-40 years.
She is unqualified for a lifetime seat on the highest court in the land.
Political Activist And Lack Of Experience
A large part of Elena Kagan's career has been that of a political attorney. She has fought tirelessly all her adult life for the left's extreme political and social agenda, working her way up and into behind-the-scenes policy-making roles at the highest levels of the Democrat party's political machine. Of course she has the same right all Americans enjoy to work in support of her political values.
But that is exactly why Elena Kagan is completely disqualified to serve on the Supreme Court.
Elena Kagan is a political operative of the first order-who even lamented the failure of socialism in America! We already know where she stands on virtually every controversial issue. From abortion to same-sex marriage, gun rights to gay and transgender rights, political liberty to religious liberty, constitutional rights for foreign terrorists vs letting our military decide how best to protect us, Elena Kagan has spent some 30 years aggressively pushing the same hard left agenda of Obama/Reid/Pelosi.
These issues will continue to come before the Supreme Court. If seated, she must either recuse herself from dozens and dozens of future cases, or secretly pretend not to favor one side over the other. Either choice is completely unacceptable.
Elena Kagan is also a cheerleader for the most activist judges in America, and the world. Her "judicial heroes" aggressively legislate from the bench and promote liberal social policy from unaccountable lifetime positions. She has made it clear that she will rule, as Barack Obama has called for, according to "empathy" and her own personal political agenda, rather than by faithfully applying the rule of law.
Elena Kagan and her political allies are portraying her as a moderate with a love for the Constitution and the rule of law. Her writings, however, reveal her to be an ideologically-committed liberal with socialist leanings, who shows greater deference to international law than over constitutional law.
Her lack of judicial experience alone should disqualify her for the highest court in the land. In fact, Kagan's own written standards for a Supreme Court Justice disqualify her. She has stated:
"It is an embarrassment that the President and Senate do not always insist, as a threshold requirement, that a nominee's previous accomplishments evidence an ability not merely to handle but to master the 'craft' aspects of being a judge."
A nominee, according to Kagan must demonstrate that he or she "has the training, skills, and aptitude to do the work of a judge at the highest level."
"Confirmation Messes, Old and New," by Elena Kagan, University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 62, No. 2 (Spring 1995), pp. 919-942, at 932,
A nominee, according to Kagan must demonstrate that he or she "has the training, skills, and aptitude to do the work of a judge at the highest level." By Kagan's own standards, she is unqualified to sit on the Supreme Court.
Her Senior Thesis in college was titled: "To The Final Conflict: Socialism In New York City, 1900-1933." In it, she wrote about the glories of socialism and described the decline of socialism in America as a "sad" chapter of American history.
Documents released from the Clinton Library show Kagan to be a political lawyer with strong opinions on key social issues such as abortion, assisted suicide, and gun control. Kagan served in the Clinton Administration as a domestic policy adviser.
The papers show that she favored the veto of a ban on partial-birth abortion, support of strong gun control measures, opposition to a federal law banning assisted suicide, etc. Her extreme liberal views are evident in these newly-released papers.
Four years after becoming Dean of the Harvard Law School, she changed the school curriculum to place more emphasis on international law than on constitutional law. She wanted students to embrace "transnational law." Kagan made international law a requirement for first-year students and made constitutional law an elective course. In doing so, she deemphasized the U.S. Constitution and encouraged students to study law through "transnational" eyes.
In addition, as Dean, she honored one Harvard's transnational professors Noah Feldman on United States Constitution Day. Feldman believes that international law should be applied to constitutional cases in the U.S. He views the Constitution as a document to be redefined by international law. In effect, he rejects our own Constitution in favor of internationalist legal systems.
Kagan's views are emerging on a number of issues, including her praise of Obama's regulatory czar Cass Sunstein when he joined the faculty at Harvard Law School in 2008. Kagan was Dean of the school at the time. She said of Sunstein: "Cass Sunstein is the preeminent legal scholar of our time - the most wide-ranging, the most prolific, the most cited, and the most influential."
But, what does Sunstein believe? He believes, among other things:
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terminally ill patients should have their organs removed without their consent;
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animals have the right to lawyers;
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abortions should be funded by taxpayers against their will;
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the word "marriage" should be deleted from our laws - only civil unions would be recognized;
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the U.S. should redistribute its wealth to poorer nations through climate change policies;
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government bureaucrats should control what Americans can see and hear in broadcast and cable media.
Kagan agrees with Sunstein that free speech should be suppressed if it is offensive to society or to the government. (Kagan, "Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role Of Government Motive In First Amendment Doctrine," 1996.)
While Dean Kagan worked aggressively to keep military recruiters off Harvard's campus, she was hypocritically promoting a richly endowed "research" program called The Islamic Legal Studies Program. Part of Harvard Law School since 1991 and funded mainly by Muslim Gulf States, its stated purpose is "to advance knowledge and understanding of Islamic law." The program works closely with the Harvard Islamic Finance Project, which became an official part of the Law School in 2003, when Professor Kagan became Dean.
Whatever Dean Kagan had against the US military's so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," that law pales in comparison to the harsh punishment of homosexuals called for by Shariah advisors - including those connected directly to the Harvard Islamic Finance Project. Shariah law calls for life in prison for gays and extreme violence against homosexuals is condoned and practiced throughout much of the Muslim world.
Sheikh Muhammed Taqi Usmani, a former Pakistani judge and chief Shariah advisor to a sponsoring bank of Harvard's Islamic Finance Project, wrote in his book Islam and Modernism: "Killing is to continue until the unbelievers pay jizyah (subjugation tax) after they are humbled or overpowered." And writing in The Harvard Crimson April 14, 2009 Harvard Muslim Student Chaplain, Taha Abdul-Basser, who has lectured regularly at the Islamic Finance Project, declared apostasy from Islam a capital offense (i.e., deserving death).
The Islamic Finance Project has been infiltrating its supporters inside the U.S. government. This project held a seminar on Islamic finance in November 2008. It was hosted by none other than Neal Kashkari, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury! Kashkari stated that he wanted the shariah finance project to get involved with major banks and investment firms.
It is interesting that while Kagan didn't directly accept money from the Saudis, she has warmly supported the Shariah finance project. This, in spite of the fact that while she supports gays against the military, she also supports a project funded by an Islamic nation that kills gays. Her defense of gays against our military wasn't apparently strong enough to keep her from supporting the anti-gay regime of Saudi Arabia, which dropped $20 million into Harvard's coffers.
Shariah finance and law are totally incompatible with our Constitutional Republic, where rights come from God and are granted equally to all. Under Shariah, rights are allocated according to religion and gender.
Abner Mikva: Activist Judge
Elena Kagan clerked for U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Judge Abner Mikva, from 1986-1987. Mikva was a Jimmy Carter appointment and later became the White House counsel to President Clinton. Kagan worked for Mikva as his deputy in this important legal office.
Jeffrey Rosen, who clerked with Kagan for Mikva, is encouraged by Obama's choice. He noted in The New Republic on May 10: "Obama has signaled that he wants a justice who can win Justice Anthony Kennedy to the liberal side of the Court in 5-4 votes. Given Kagan's demonstrated success winning over skeptical conservatives at every stage of her career, she seems ideally suited for this role."
Abner Mikva is also thrilled by Obama's choice of Kagan for the Supreme Court. In an interview with Greg Hinz on Crains' Blog, Mikva described Kagan this way: "In the terms you (media) guys use, she often ended up on the liberal side."
Kagan's Hero: Retired President Of The Supreme Court Of Israel
The retired chief judge of the Supreme Court of Israel is considered one of the most activist liberal judges in the entire world. But Elena Kagan called him "... my judicial hero. He is the judge who has best advanced democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and justice."
JudgeBarak calls his own book, The Judge in a Democracy, "a textbook for judicial activists." Judge Robert Bork said it "establishes a world record for judicial hubris."
For example, Barak says that in some cases a judge may need to go "beyond actually deciding the dispute" and instead "make law." He claims "the judge may give a statute a new meaning, a dynamic meaning, that seeks to bridge the gap between law and life's changing reality... that suits new social needs." Barak also believes judges have the right to:
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"[J]udge the deployment of troops in wartime" and to countermand military orders
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Make the government, in the name of "human dignity," alleviate homelessness and poverty
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"[O]verride statutes" with no accountability to the executive or legislative branches
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Declare "any government action that is 'unreasonable' is illegal"
Why is it important that Kagan admires Barack as her judicial hero? Because he is considered the most activist judicial activist now living. He promotes the idea that nations should be governed by international law, not by the laws of the sovereign nations. If his philosophy is hers, then it is clear she would use international law in making decisions as a Supreme Court Justice.
Kagan also signed a letter from Law School Deans designed to silence the critics of activist judges as "irresponsible" and claiming these critics are "harmful to our constitutional system and to the value of the judiciary."
Kagan is willing to consider the use of foreign law in reaching her decisions. At her confirmation hearing for Solicitor General, she was asked about using foreign law. She replied:
"At least some members of the Court find foreign law relevant in at least some contexts. When this is the case, I think the Solicitor General's office should offer reasonable foreign arguments to attract those Justices' support."
Summary
Traditional Values Coalition respects the right of Elena Kagan to aggressively pursue her political agenda over the last thirty years, no matter how radical she clearly is. But no lifelong political activist has any business serving on any federal court in America.
Elena Kagan is only 50 years old. She could be serving on the Supreme Court for the next 30-40 years if confirmed by the Senate. This must not happen.
TVC's report, "Judges: Our Robed Masters" describes why federal judges and Supreme Court Justices must adhere to the strict construction of the Constitution and laws in their decisions. A "living Constitution" view gives judges unlimited power to create or destroy rights that only come from God - and that should be protected by the Constitution.
Kagan's lack of judicial experience and poor judicial temperament combined with her work as a lifelong political activist prove her unqualified for a lifetime seat on the highest court in the land. The Senate must oppose her confirmation.
