WH: Election Year Politics Not A Factor In Kagan Pick
Since President Reagan took office in 1981, 12 seats on the United States Supreme Court have become open. Until this year, only four of those openings occurred in an election year. Yet despite an increasingly contentious environment and the strong likelihood that Democrats will lose seats after elections this fall, White House officials today said that political circumstances played no role in President Obama's choice of Solicitor General Elena Kagan.
"The president came at this process with an appreciation for what a historic choice and responsibility picking a Supreme Court justice is, and I think he picked the person he thought would make the best justice for the Supreme Court. He did that without regard to the number of Democrats we have in the Senate, without regard to the fact that this is an Election Year, without regard to any of those extraneous factors," Ron Klain, chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, told RCP at a briefing this morning.
Leading up to today's announcement there had been speculation that the president, aware that his 59-seat Senate majority is unlikely to last, might favor a potentially contentious candidate from the short list now and save a more centrist choice, like Merrick Garland, for the future when that majority is narrower. But press secretary Robert Gibbs spoke of the folly of that line of thinking.
"My guess is every administration walks out of here with a file of who they were going to nominate next, and never got the opportunity to nominate that person," he said. "You can be too cute by half trying to narrowcast and look ahead. I would reiterate what Ron said - this is about picking the best person at that time and not with a lot of moving chess pieces."
The last Supreme Court nomination in an election year was President Clinton's choice of Stephen Breyer in May 1994. David Souter, who resigned last year, was nominated by the first President Bush in 1990. Both were confirmed easily. President Reagan had two appointments to make in 1986 after the resignation of Chief Justice Warren Burger; Antonin Scalia was confirmed unanimously while the promotion of William Rehnquist to chief was more of a fight.
Even though seven Republicans voted for Kagan to become solicitor general, the White House acknowledged the situation might be different now both because it's an election year and because a Supreme Court seat is at stake. But in the president's consultation with Republican leaders and members of the Judiciary Committee, officials say they "indicated an openness to considering her."
"I would hope that people politics aside and come to understand who she is and what she stands for," Klain said. "I would hope they all vote for her. I also live in the real world and I know that they're all unlikely to vote for her. But certainly I would hope that she would have bipartisan support as she did last year."
A number of candidates on both sides have issued statements on Kagan's nomination. Kendrick Meek, the Democratic hopeful in Florida, did so even before the president announced the selection this morning. But Republicans in particular may seek to use the pick to rally supporters. The NRSC launched a Web site, ProtectTheCourts.org, that will collect users information and comments on the selection. But Republicans have also been careful to state in the early going an intention to handle the process with an open mind.
"We will continue to be respectful throughout the nomination process, just as we were during Justice Sotomayor's nomination," a Republican strategist tells RCP. "Republicans will withhold judgment on Kagan until there can be a full and fair confirmation process that allows her to demonstrate whether she will act with restraint on the Court or bring a personal ideological agenda."