Senator Lindsay Graham will most likely have a a primary challenge in 2014 as a result of being the lone Republican on the Senate’s Judiciary Committee to vote “yes” on the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan. Kagan now heads for the full Senate, where she is virtually certain of confirmation, and where she will wield immense power for a goodly part of the next three decades.
But before the almost inevitable happens, a piece in the Wall Street Journal reminds us of what we’re getting. For one thing, Kagan has made it very clear that recusal is not in the cards when the healthcare suits come before the high court. She has said she was in a meeting in which the subject of the litigation came up but that she did not weigh in on the matter. Had she, recusal would have been in order.
The Journal notes:
It must have taken a deliberate act of avoidance to hear and say nothing about this potentially landmark legal challenge on such a momentous issue. Our guess is that either someone advised her to avoid the subject, perhaps someone at the White House who knew she was a potential nominee. Or perhaps Ms. Kagan herself, with what we have learned are her finely cultivated political instincts, decided she should all but recuse herself from the case while at the Justice Department lest she later have to recuse herself while on the Court.
Neither explanation suggests an especially neutral view toward the ObamaCare cases. In fact, they suggest a zeal to be able to hear the cases that may betray that she already knows where she will come out. And we doubt it’s finding that President Obama’s legacy legislation violates the Constitution.
Why do I think that Justice Kagan is going to be much more direct than Justice-in-waiting Elena Kagan?