President Obama nominates Elena Kagan to succeed John Paul Stevens

As expected, President Barack Obama has nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, who announced his decision to step down from America's highest court earlier this spring. Here is an excerpt from the President's announcement this morning, made at the White House:

While we can't presume to replace Justice Stevens’ wisdom or experience, I have selected a nominee who I believe embodies that same excellence, independence, integrity, and passion for the law -- and who can ultimately provide that same kind of leadership on the Court: our Solicitor General, and my friend, Elena Kagan.

Elena is widely regarded as one of the nation’s foremost legal minds. She’s an acclaimed legal scholar with a rich understanding of constitutional law. She is a former White House aide with a lifelong commitment to public service and a firm grasp of the nexus and boundaries between our three branches of government. She is a trailblazing leader -- the first woman to serve as Dean of Harvard Law School -- and one of the most successful and beloved deans in its history. And she is a superb Solicitor General, our nation’s chief lawyer representing the American people’s interests before the Supreme Court, the first woman in that position as well. And she has won accolades from observers across the ideological spectrum for her well-reasoned arguments and commanding presence.

For those who don't know, the Solicitor General is the person responsible for arguing cases on behalf of the United States government (and more specifically, the executive branch) before the Supreme Court.

The Solicitor General is one of the highest-ranking officials in the Department of Justice, and effectively serves as an assistant to the Supreme Court.

Republicans are already criticizing Kagan for lack of legal experience (she is not a judge, and does not have extensive experience as a litigator). But the Constitution does not require either. In fact, the Constitution does not even require that Supreme Court justices be lawyers — although every justice in history has been. What really matters in terms of background is whether Kagan has a great legal mind, and there's no question that she does.

What potentially concerns us is not her background, but her views.

Part of the reason she was picked, several experts have suggested, is that she is doesn't have a paper trail Republicans can pick over to assess her views, yet she is still a known quantity because she has worked in Democratic politics for so long. (When Kagan was young, she actually worked for Thurgood Marshall, who argued Brown v. Board of Education and later served as Solicitor General before becoming a Supreme Court justice himself.)

Basically, the President has nominated somebody that he and his team know a lot about, but we don't, because much of what is known about Kagan and her views is private knowledge rather than public information.

That puts progressives in a bit of a quandary: Many of us don't feel like trusting the President, but would also like to give Kagan the benefit of the doubt, and believe that she could be a progressive jurist.

That's how we feel about this nomination, anyway. We intend to be open-minded, and reserve further comment on Kagan's views until we've had the opportunity to listen to her remarks before (and Q&A with) the Senate Judiciary Committee.