Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., who trails badly in today’s newly released Rasmussen poll of his primary against Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., was not so hot on President Obama’s new Supreme Court nominee when she was nominated to her current post as Solicitor General of the United States.
Specter, still a Republican in February 2009, sent the letter below to Elena Kagan. He accused her of failing to provide adequate written answers to the committee’s questions. He wrote that she had, in a 1995 book review, argued well that senators should grill nominees to both judicial and executive positions as to their stance on issues, or else the Senate confirmation process becomes an exercise in “vacuity” and serves no real public purpose. Based on her own argument, he refused to support her nomination.
What will Specter say this time if Kagan pleads out on specific Supreme Court issues she has not written about, as nearly every nominee does?
