Conservatives Fire Final Salvo Against Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan

Conservative activists gathered on the steps of the Supreme Court and Capitol Hill Thursday to issue their final criticisms against Elena Kagan, whose confirmation hearings begin in the Senate on Monday.

Representatives of various conservative action groups assailed Kagan as a "stealth nominee" whose thin judicial record and participation in the Clinton administration suggests that she would be a justice who will rewrite the law to serve Democratic interests.

By the time the nine speakers finished their remarks, they had painted a picture of Kagan as a wily political operative who has kept herself cloistered in elite universities, consorting with international law experts and over-thinking the American constitution. According to the activists, underneath the "blank slate" the Obama administration has promoted lies a clear record of opposition to free speech, the U.S. military, religion, conservative moral values, guns, students' rights, and the constitution itself.

"She went from the Upper West Side to a private school to Princeton to Oxford to Harvard to the University of Chicago to the Clinton administration and back to Harvard," said David Norcross, chairman of the National Republican Lawyers Association. "When you have that much time in a cloister, you have too much time to think. And think she did."

At a Capitol Hill press conference, Curt Levey, executive director of Citizens for Justice, said Kagan's legal record consists mostly of "peon work," so senators should look at her political record. "A good look at her resume shows management and political skills ... so we worry that she will put her political ideology above the law."

The salvo followed earlier criticism of Kagan by Robert Bork, a conservative judge who was denied confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1987. In a teleconference Monday, Bork said Kagan "has not had time to develop a mature philosophy of judging." Bork also questioned Kagan's expressed admiration for Aharon Barak, an Israeli lawyer and academic champion of judicial activism, calling Barak "the least competent judge on the planet."

Kagan has also received criticism from the left. The American Civil Liberties Union released an indifferent report this week, saying most of Kagan's views could not be determined, and the pro-choice Center for Reproductive Rights questioned Kagan's commitment to abortion rights.

Levey of Citizens for Justice said the group was not recommending a filibuster of Kagan, or even saying she should not be confirmed. "We just want tough questions in the hearings to get to the bottom of what we don't know," he said. Levey mentioned the 2,000 pages of Kagan documents that the Clinton Library did not release. "If they're embarrassing to the Clintons, that's OK. But if they're embarrassing to Elena Kagan," he said, Americans have a right to see them.

Despite Levey's insistence that the group just wants tough questions -- he praised Kagan as a "smart woman" who would probably make a "great legislator" -- other activists had already decided to push for a filibuster.

Tommy Sears of the Center for Military Readiness, a group that opposes repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and putting women in combat, said Kagan's brush with the military at Harvard was enough to disqualify her. Kagan's opposition to allowing military recruiters on campus because "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" violated the school's anti-discrimination policy, Sears said, is "an important issue of national security." He called DADT "important and vital" to the military, and said Kagan's views are out of step with the American public.

Kagan's opponents slammed the nominee's views on campaign finance laws, characterizing them as opposition to free speech. Mandi Campbell of the Liberty Center for Law and Politics warned that Kagan might favor laws that attempt to silence people who disagree with her "liberal agenda." "Tea Partiers and those this administration has branded as 'right-wing extremists' should have the same right to speech as Kagan does," Campbell said.

Kagan's friends, mentors, and lawyers she admires also came under criticism. Former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, for whom Kagan served as a clerk, and former Democratic representative and law professor Abner Mikvah, were denounced as liberal activists who had influenced Kagan in their ways.

"Kagan's record is that of a liberal political soldier, not an impartial jurist," said Mario Diaz of Concerned Women for America. "[We] would oppose a judge willing to circumvent the law to achieve the results we want. Judges must follow the law and the Constitution as written."