She offered no meaningful observations on U.S. vs. Morrison, in which the court overturned the Violence Against Women Act, blaming Congress’ “method of reasoning,” notwithstanding a “mountain of data assembled by Congress” demonstrating “the effects of violence against women on interstate commerce” noted in Justice David Souter’s dissent.
She offered no substantive comment on Citizens United, in which the court reversed a century-old precedent by allowing corporations to engage in political advertising. Justice John Paul Stevens said in dissent that the court showed disrespect by “pulling out the rug beneath Congress,” which had structured the campaign-finance reform bill, McCain-Feingold, on a 100,000-page factual record based on standards cited in a recent Supreme Court decision.
Likewise, she avoided taking sides in the court’s expansion of executive authority, declining comment on the historic clash posed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the president’s warrantless wiretapping authorized under the Terrorist Surveillance Program…
On balance, Kagan did little to move the nomination hearings from the stylized “farce” (her own word) they have become into a discussion of substantive issues that reveal something of the nominee’s judicial philosophy and predilections.
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