Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan meets with the Senate Judiciary Committee on day three of her confirmation hearing.

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan meets with the Senate Judiciary Committee on day two of her confirmation hearing.

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan surprised few but disappointed many who hoped her past dismissal of Supreme Court nomination hearings as a "hollow charade" would result in more forthright testimony in her second day before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Asked by Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., which direction she would move the court -- a question Kohl noted Kagan once said nominees should answer -- she demurred. "All I can say is that I will try to decide each case that comes before me as fully and objectively as I can," she said. Kagan said it "would be a bad idea" to name justices she admired. "My, oh my," said an exasperated Kohl.

Pressed by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Kagan did not offer any clear personal view, instead describing her argument as solicitor general. And in response to a question by Senate Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Kagan defended her decision to limit military recruiting at Harvard Law School while dean there. "The military had full access to our students at all times," she said, while stopping short of calling it "equal access."

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Protesters and Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan arrive on Capitol Hill today for the start of her confirmation hearing.

Read opening statements of Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., after the jump.

Continue reading Opening Statements

Senate Republicans kicked off the Judiciary Committee's hearing on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan today with an attack that ranged from Kagan's college thesis to her solicitor general stint, signaling the GOP will redouble efforts to find controversy in the so-far quiet nomination.

Senate Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., faulted Kagan's lack of judicial experience while criticizing particular actions in most of her career stops.

"It's not just that she has never been a judge," said Sessions, who has previously supported nomination of Republicans who have not worked as judges. "Ms. Kagan has less real legal experience than any nominee in 50 years."

Sessions said that Kagan's "college thesis on socialism in New York seems to bemoan socialism's demise there" and that her master's thesis argued the Warren Court should have better justified its activism. He called Kagan "the point person for the Clinton administration's efforts to block congressional restrictions on partial-birth abortions." He renewed attacks on restrictions she put on military recruiting at Harvard Law School while dean there and on arguments she made as solicitor general.

Sessions also said Kagan "has associated herself with well-known activist judges."

The kitchen-sink criticism in part aims to present Kagan as an embodiment of liberal White House policies Republicans want to highlight. It is also partly aimed at motivating conservative voters despite little chance of blocking Kagan's confirmation, GOP aides have said.

CongressDaily subscribers can read the full story this afternoon.

Elena Kagan listens to opening statements by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the first day of hearings. (Pablo Martinez Monsivias-Pool/Getty Images)

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is set to offer the Senate Judiciary Committee today a humble statement urging Supreme Court deference to legislators, even as other events overshadow the hearing.

In portions of her opening statement released by the White House, Kagan calls for the court to protect rule of law through "a commitment to even-handedness, principle and restraint."

"The Supreme Court, of course, has the responsibility of ensuring that our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals. But the court must also recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people," Kagan says.

The motto "Equal Justice Under Law," she argued, means that all who come before the court "regardless of wealth or power or station" get "a fair shake."

She said she "will make no pledges this week other than this one -- that if confirmed, I will remember and abide by" career lessons, listen, work hard and "do my best to consider every case impartially, modestly, with commitment to principle, and in accordance with law."

Those statements can read either as an endorsement of Democratic criticism of the court under Chief Justice John Roberts for conservative activism or a recitation of views almost all lawmakers express.

CongressDaily subscribers can read more here.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings will continue on schedule, the Senate Judiciary Committee said today, kicking off even as senators mourn the passing of Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.

In a statement issued this morning, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., reflected on Byrd's service, both to his state and to the upper chamber.

"No senator came to care more about the Constitution or to be a more effective defender of our constitutional government than the senior senator from West Virginia. He was a senator's senator," Leahy said.

Read more at Hotline On Call.

The American Bar Association, in an expected step, today gave Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan its top rating of unanimously well qualified as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to start its hearing on Kagan's nomination Monday.

"This peer-reviewed evaluation of the nominee's integrity, professional competence and temperament is further evidence of Elena Kagan's qualifications to serve as an independent justice on the Supreme Court," said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

The rating comes as Republicans continue their efforts to paint Kagan as a judicial activist whose political views would overwhelm objective assessment of legal issues. Former Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, today cited examples from Kagan's career he said "indicate that for most of her career, Ms. Kagan has endorsed, and has praised others who endorse, an activist judicial philosophy."

According to this week's National Journal Political Insiders Poll, Elena Kagan's prospects for confirmation to the Supreme Court may be on the rise.

Both Democratic Insiders and GOP Insiders were asked: "Would it be politically smart for Republicans to try to block the confirmation of Elena Kagan?" Not surprisingly, 96 percent of the 99 Democrats who participated in the poll this week said, "No." But far more importantly, so did a whopping 76 percent of the 97 Republicans.

Moreover, Kagan's 76 percent score from Republican Insiders was more positive than the response they gave in May 2009 when the Political Insiders Poll asked the identical question about Sonia Sotomayor. Back then, 64 percent of the GOP Insiders said it wouldn't be politically smart for their party to block Sotomayor.

This week, only 21 percent of the GOP Insiders said that the party should try to block Kagan and 3 percent said it depends on the information that comes to light in the confirmation process.

Last year, many observers thought the GOP had to be wary about fighting the first Hispanic nominee to the high court because the party had already seen a significant decline in the Hispanics vote in 2006 and 2008. The same political concerns over blocking the ascent of a "first" are not at play with Kagan. So why are Republicans not willing to put up a red light now? GOP Insiders think the party base is already plenty motivated to go the polls in November and a fight over Kagan could alienate swing voters and become a distraction. As one GOP Insider put it, "The base is plenty motivated even without a fight over a judge that the R's will lose."

Said another: "She may be the most balanced choice we're likely to get from an Obama White House. The smart play is to keep the spotlight on issues that are hurting the president, not to shift it elsewhere."

For complete results and all the Insiders' comments, click here.

Contours of what looks to be a sharply partisan Senate Judiciary Committee on Elena Kagan's Supreme Court nomination are becoming clearer after several key panel members laid out views on Kagan in recent days.

Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., like Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., has faulted what Sessions calls Kagan's tendency to advance "pretty clear liberal views," through legal means and her specific step to limit military recruiters access while serving as dean of Harvard Law School.

Sessions on Wednesday returned to the recruiting issue. In what may be his most pointed attack yet, he called Kagan's decision unethical, illegal, arrogant and discriminatory toward veterans.

"Perhaps to some in elite progressive circles... it is acceptable to discriminate against patriots who fight and die for our freedoms, but the vast majority of Americans, I think, correctly know such behavior is wrong, and has an arrogance about it," Sessions said. He accused Kagan of "clear, open defiance of federal law."

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From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Solicitor General Elena Kagan's membership in an exclusive club is causing trouble for her Supreme Court nomination. But that is unlikely to defer future applicants," the Washington Post reports. "Kagan is part of a vast network of lawyers of all political persuasions who clerked for a Supreme Court justice."

• "Two of the most influential justices ever to sit on the Supreme Court -- Thurgood Marshall and Antonin Scalia -- probably couldn't get confirmed to the bench today." Roll Call (subscription) reports. "So say scholars and Senators who argue that the high court has turned into such a political battleground that recent presidents now eschew nominating individuals like Marshall and Scalia."

Elena Kagan's nomination has so far escaped the attacks that overwhelmed Robert Bork's in 1987. Kagan has operated largely under the radar since President Obama nominated her on May 10. Unlike Bork, she lacks a bookshelf of controversial writings, speeches, and other provocative chatter for opponents to mine. And the Senate's Democratic majority is more lopsided than it was in 1987 -- 59 (including independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont) to 41 Republicans.

Nonetheless, the 50-year-old former Harvard Law School dean has not closed the sale with the public; poll numbers show uncertainty and even some uneasiness about her nomination. A recent USA Today/Gallup survey found that Kagan's popular support -- 46 percent -- is lower than that of five of the last seven nominees in the first polls taken after their selection. Only Bork and Harriet Miers, whose confirmation was favored by just 44 percent of respondents after President Bush nominated her on October 3, 2005, attracted less support. Bush withdrew Miers' name 25 days later amid a revolt by conservatives who saw her as not sufficiently committed to their issues.

A Senate Democratic aide noted that because so little is known about Kagan -- and because she has said nothing publicly except a few remarks on the day she was nominated -- the hearings take on greater importance and give her a chance to make a favorable public impression.

Subscribers can read the full story in this week's National Journal.

Senate Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., on Thursday sharpened attacks on Elena Kagan's work as a law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, suggesting there is little Kagan can do to avoid their opposition and that of most Senate Republicans.

Kyl said Kagan's memos suggest she would be a "results-oriented" justice. "I am not going to vote for someone that I conclude is a results-oriented judge rather than someone who just decides each case based on facts," he said.

The senators elaborated on a critique Sessions has previously laid out, citing a series of cases considered by the court while Kagan worked under Marshall, when she advised him to accept or reject cases based on strategic considerations of how the court would rule on the case. The senators released a document citing memos where they said Kagan showed a "propensity to view legal cases through a political lens."

"These bench memos reveal time and time again an effort to reach a certain result in the case," Kyl said.

Continue reading Sessions, Kyl Blast Kagan Over Memos

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Monday accused the GOP of attempting to impose a judicial litmus test on the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, arguing that Republicans 'demand justices who will guarantee the results they want,'" Roll Call (subscription) reports.

• "Republicans have found little in Kagan's public statements, private utterances and nonjudicial paper trail to make a major fuss about. When more than 46,000 pages of her work in the Clinton White House were released Friday afternoon, only a handful of Republicans and their conservative allies off Capitol Hill raised concerns about some of her liberal-leaning positions," Politico reports. "All of which is making some wonder: What if they held a confirmation battle, but nobody showed up for a fight?"

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Senate Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Wednesday called on the Defense Department to release any documents relating to its dispute with Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan over the department's recruitment efforts at Harvard Law School," Roll Call (subscription) reports.

• Kagan's "review of the book 'A Confirmation Mess' is creating a confirmation mess of its own," AP reports. "Kagan's 1995 commentary on Stephen Carter's book rendered a harsh judgment on how lawmakers question Supreme Court nominees, and that has some senators preparing to interrogate her about it."