Elena Kagan Gets a Boost from Justice Scalia

To the extent that Elena Kagan was vulnerable to conservative arguments that she lacks judicial experience, the Supreme Court nominee recently received a big boost from Justice Antonin Scalia -- one of the Court's most conservative members. During a speech at Catholic University Columbus School of Law in Washington, DC, Scalia praised Kagan's lack of judicial experience. Jake Tapper has the details. Here is a snip:

“When I first came to the Supreme Court, three of my colleagues had never been a federal judge,” said Scalia who joined the Court in 1986 after being nominated by President Reagan. “William Rehnquist came to the Bench from the Office of Legal Counsel. Byron White was Deputy Attorney General. And Lewis Powell who was a private lawyer in Richmond and had been president of the American Bar
Association.”

“Currently, there is nobody on the Court who has not served as a judge --indeed, as a federal judge -- all nine of us,” he continued. “. . . I am happy to see that this latest nominee is not a federal judge – and not a judge at all.”