Obama picks Elena Kagan for Supreme Court

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WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court this morning, the White House said Monday.
In choosing Kagan, Obama has turned to a highly credentialed lawyer who has spent her career in the corridors of legal power, including the past year as the government's advocate before the justices.
As former dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan had a reputation for bringing together ideological factions. That style might help her bridge differences on the divided court.
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If confirmed, she will be the third woman on the current bench — and the fourth woman in the court's 221-year history. She would also be the fourth sitting justice with strong roots in New York City, where she grew up.
Perhaps most significantly for Obama's legal legacy, Kagan, who just turned 50, would be the youngest justice by five years. As such, Kagan's tenure could stretch for nearly four decades, deepening Obama's imprint on the nation's highest court.
Kagan would fill the spot of the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Her nomination, which was also reported late Sunday by other news media, is subject to Senate confirmation. Hearings would likely begin in late June or early July.
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She would be the first appointee in nearly 40 years who was not previously a judge.
In 2003, Kagan became the first female dean of Harvard law school. She welcomed conservative professors to the liberal-dominated faculty.
When she was nominated to be solicitor general in 2009, Republican-appointed solicitors general Theodore Olson and Charles Fried, who is also a Harvard law professor, were among former solicitors who backed her. Kagan was approved by a vote of 61-31; only seven Republicans voted for her.
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As solicitor general, she oversees appeals of government cases and regularly represents the Obama administration during oral arguments.
Until she became the government's top lawyer at the court, she had never argued before the justices. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., criticized her lack of experience and said he, a physician, would not send patients to professors who only talked about a field and had never practiced.
At the 2009 hearing, Kagan said, "When you get up to that podium at the Supreme Court, the question is much less how many times you have been there before than what do you bring up with you. And I think I bring up some of the right things