Turncoat, RINO Senator Graham Votes To Approve Kagan

From Vision To America and The New York Times:

July 20, 2010, 12:09 pm


Committee Approves Kagan’s Nomination to Supreme Court

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG



Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, was endorsed by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 13-to-6 vote on Tuesday.



Ms. Kagan received one Republican vote, that of Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who said that while she was not someone he would have chosen, “the person who did choose – President Obama – I think chose wisely.’’



In Tuesday’s vote, Mr. Graham broke party ranks to join the committee’s 12 Democrats in voting in her favor.



The nomination now goes to the full Senate, where confirmation is expected in the next few days.



SUPREME COURT NOMINATION

How G.O.P. Senators Plan to Vote on Kagan

Elena Kagan is expected to be confirmed by the Senate, despite opposition of some Republican lawmakers. The question is: How many Republican votes will she get?



Times Topics: Elena Kagan

Mr. Graham’s announcement of support came as the Senate Judiciary Committee took up the Kagan nomination. His decision was not a surprise, given that he supported Justice Sonia Sotomayor last year. But his lengthy speech in support of her sparked debate over the Senate’s approach to judicial confirmations and helped reinforce his image as a maverick in the Senate, where he has been the rare Republican willing to reach across the aisle to forge consensus with the Obama administration on issues like immigration, energy and the war on terror. In his argument, he took Mr. Obama to task for taking too partisan an approach.



“No one spent more time trying to beat President Obama than I did, except maybe Senator McCain,’’ Mr. Graham said Tuesday, referring to his work in the 2008 presidential campaign on behalf of Senator John McCain of Arizona, Mr. Obama’s Republican rival. “I missed my own election – I voted absentee. But I understood – we lost, President Obama won. The Constitution in my view puts a requirement on me not to replace my judgment for his.’’



Mr. Graham said there were “100 reasons’’ he could vote against Ms. Kagan if he based his vote on her philosophy, which is at odds with his. But he said she set a time-honored standard for judicial nominees: whether they are qualified and of good character.



As a senator, Mr. Obama adopted a different standard, saying it was permissible to vote against a nominee based on judicial philosophy, not just qualifications. Mr. Graham said that approach undermined the judicial confirmation process, by making it more partisan.



“Something’s changing when it comes to the advice and consent clause,’’ he said. “Senator Obama was part of the problem, not part of the solution.’’



At least one Democrat, Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said Mr. Graham’s remarks had made him rethink his own approach to judicial nominations — including the decision by Democrats several years ago to prevent Miguel Estrada, a prominent conservative lawyer, from getting a hearing before the committee when President George W. Bush nominated Mr. Estrada to the federal appeals court.



Mr. Estrada, a close friend of Ms. Kagan, has spoken strongly in support of her, and she has in turn spoken in support of him. Senator Durbin said Tuesday that he now believed “Miguel Estrada deserves a day in court or a day before the commitee.”



Of Senator Graham, Senator Durbin said: “I reflected on some of the things that I have said and how I have voted in the past, and thought that perhaps his statement suggested a better course.”